Rare Daguerreotype Purchased

A rare daguerreotype of abolitionist John Brown has been purchased at auction by the Hall Family Foundation on behalf of Kansas City, Missouri's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Auctioned by Cowan's Auction of Cincinatti, the daguerreotype, photographed by African-American photographer Augustus Washington, was purchased by phone bid for $97,750.

John Brown is best known for his raid of the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1859. He was later tried and hanged by the state of Virginia.

The daguerreotype process was popular in the U.S. in the 1840s and 1850s. Named for it's inventor, Louis Daguerre, the daguerreotype image was formed by the action of vaporized mercury on a sensitized and exposed silver plate.