Restoration and Reconstruction of the Original Glass Plate Image - Mathew Brady, Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman, Family, and Staff - Arlington House - Oct 18, 1862
This composite illustrates my approach to restoring this classic Civil War group portrait taken on the steps of the Custis Lee Mansion (aka Arlington House), where Union Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman had his headquarters during the fall of 1862. The group includes the famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, (standing next to Heintzelman) some of the general’s family, and Heintzelman’s immediate staff.
At the top, the original left and right half stereo negatives, freely available in high resolution on the Library of Congress website. Here is the link at: www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/2018670640/
The two halves were originally together, side by side, on a 4x10 inch glass plate. Later in the 19th century, the 10 inch long plate was cut vertically in half to produce two 4x5 inch half stereo plates, each with a 1.25 aspect ratio. The plates were cropped even further to reduce the aspect ratio to the roughly square 1.0 aspect ratio of the common stereo cards of that day and age.
Underneath, as a Photoshop layer, a full contact print made before the glass plate was cut in two. I just recently discovered this at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, where I purchased a one month subscription in order to view, download, and analyze it. Without a subscription, all you see is a miniature thumbnail, considerably darkened, with a lock icon over top it. Since the Institute has gone to such great lengths to hide this public domain image behind their pay wall, I won't post the full object. I’ve only used it here to illustrate what sections of the original glass plate negatives are missing. I've resized the contact print (amber colored), aligned it, and placed it under the corresponding areas of the L&R negatives. The amber colored areas that you see around the negatives represent the glass that is missing from the Library of Congress negatives - the discarded portions of the original stereograph.
Here is the link to the 1862 contact print at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, where it will instruct you to "Login to your subscription or Order a PDF copy:" www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc0302903
The actual date for the photograph is Oct. 18, 1862, which comes from another image taken the same day at Arlington, of the same group of officers, as documented in the diary scrapbook (Vol. 3, pages 993 & 994) of Robert Knox Sneden, who served as topographical engineer for Heintzelman during this period. In all there were at least six images taken of Heintzelman and staff officers, using Arlington House as the backdrop. The female subjects are included in this scene and one other, Mathew Brady is only captured in this view.
According to Private Sneden, Mathew Brady did not go to Arlington alone; he was accompanied by another noted photographer, Alexander Gardner, who just the month before had taken a series of 70 photographs of the Antietam battlefield, including for the first time some of the unburied dead.
Today, this stereograph is always credited to Mathew Brady, probably because he owned the gallery and appears in the photo. In 1862, Gardner was employed by Brady, but obviously Brady was not behind the camera here, positioning the people, and framing up the final composition. So, I believe the credit for this historic image belongs to Alexander Gardner as the photographer.
Finally, at the bottom, within the white border, is a restored 2D version, using just the existing glass negatives, cleaned and repaired to provide a high resolution view of the scene. In the restoration, both the left and right negatives were extended outward to reincorporate the discarded sections of the glass plates and reproduce the full width of the photographed scene. I’m still working on a 3D version and hopefully, the result will be closer to what Alexander Gardner originally intended when he composed the shot 163 years ago.
In my next flickr post, I’ll identify 13 of the 16 key subjects captured in this group portrait. For Civil War buffs, just in case you’re wondering, that’s not Union general Judson Kilpatrick sitting behind the lady at left.
Restoration and Reconstruction of the Original Glass Plate Image - Mathew Brady, Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman, Family, and Staff - Arlington House - Oct 18, 1862
This composite illustrates my approach to restoring this classic Civil War group portrait taken on the steps of the Custis Lee Mansion (aka Arlington House), where Union Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman had his headquarters during the fall of 1862. The group includes the famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, (standing next to Heintzelman) some of the general’s family, and Heintzelman’s immediate staff.
At the top, the original left and right half stereo negatives, freely available in high resolution on the Library of Congress website. Here is the link at: www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/2018670640/
The two halves were originally together, side by side, on a 4x10 inch glass plate. Later in the 19th century, the 10 inch long plate was cut vertically in half to produce two 4x5 inch half stereo plates, each with a 1.25 aspect ratio. The plates were cropped even further to reduce the aspect ratio to the roughly square 1.0 aspect ratio of the common stereo cards of that day and age.
Underneath, as a Photoshop layer, a full contact print made before the glass plate was cut in two. I just recently discovered this at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, where I purchased a one month subscription in order to view, download, and analyze it. Without a subscription, all you see is a miniature thumbnail, considerably darkened, with a lock icon over top it. Since the Institute has gone to such great lengths to hide this public domain image behind their pay wall, I won't post the full object. I’ve only used it here to illustrate what sections of the original glass plate negatives are missing. I've resized the contact print (amber colored), aligned it, and placed it under the corresponding areas of the L&R negatives. The amber colored areas that you see around the negatives represent the glass that is missing from the Library of Congress negatives - the discarded portions of the original stereograph.
Here is the link to the 1862 contact print at the Gilder Lehrman Institute, where it will instruct you to "Login to your subscription or Order a PDF copy:" www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/glc0302903
The actual date for the photograph is Oct. 18, 1862, which comes from another image taken the same day at Arlington, of the same group of officers, as documented in the diary scrapbook (Vol. 3, pages 993 & 994) of Robert Knox Sneden, who served as topographical engineer for Heintzelman during this period. In all there were at least six images taken of Heintzelman and staff officers, using Arlington House as the backdrop. The female subjects are included in this scene and one other, Mathew Brady is only captured in this view.
According to Private Sneden, Mathew Brady did not go to Arlington alone; he was accompanied by another noted photographer, Alexander Gardner, who just the month before had taken a series of 70 photographs of the Antietam battlefield, including for the first time some of the unburied dead.
Today, this stereograph is always credited to Mathew Brady, probably because he owned the gallery and appears in the photo. In 1862, Gardner was employed by Brady, but obviously Brady was not behind the camera here, positioning the people, and framing up the final composition. So, I believe the credit for this historic image belongs to Alexander Gardner as the photographer.
Finally, at the bottom, within the white border, is a restored 2D version, using just the existing glass negatives, cleaned and repaired to provide a high resolution view of the scene. In the restoration, both the left and right negatives were extended outward to reincorporate the discarded sections of the glass plates and reproduce the full width of the photographed scene. I’m still working on a 3D version and hopefully, the result will be closer to what Alexander Gardner originally intended when he composed the shot 163 years ago.
In my next flickr post, I’ll identify 13 of the 16 key subjects captured in this group portrait. For Civil War buffs, just in case you’re wondering, that’s not Union general Judson Kilpatrick sitting behind the lady at left.