Half-length studio ruby ambrotype portrait of Senator Charles Sumner. Sixth plate. N.p., c. mid-1850s. Uncased with original seals.

Unpublished and previously unknown portrait of Senator Charles Sumner, abolitionist and statesman.

Sumner is seated, angled slightly away from the photographer. He wears his typical attire consisting of a waistcoat, satin cravat, and jacket with thick velvet collar, seen in other contemporaneous portraits of Sumner. Also visible is a ribbon that Sumner used to hold his glasses. Though necessary for his vision, he apparently disliked wearing spectacles and instead kept them close at hand with a ribbon or a chain. Author Stephen Puleo notes in his comprehensive history of the attack on Sumner on the Senate floor: "Vanity prevented a nearsighted Charles Sumner from wearing glasses, so when he heard his name spoken, he looked up and squinted at the tall, blurred and indistinct figures standing before his desk." (Puleo, The Caning: The Assault That Drove America to Civil War, 2012, p. 110-111). A ribbon or cord seemed to be his preferred method to adhere his glasses early in his career, with several daguerreotypes showing it clearly, including two Southworth & Hawes portraits (Metropolitan Museum of Art 37.14.28; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 43.1398), and another mid-1850s portrait (Boston Public Library, 07_05_000006). Later portraits, including an 1873 oil on painting by Walter Ingalls, depict him using a more formal chain. It was a distinctive feature of his appearance, even used by political cartoonists (c.f. "The Massive Grievance", Vanity Fair, 25 May 1872; G. Bull "Between Wisdom and Folly." Harper's Weekly. 6 July 1872).

The portrait was captured in the mid 1850s, between 1854 and 1860. His hair and distinctive sideburns are dark and without their later, significant gray, dating the portrait to the early ambrotype era. This period was a significant one for Sumner. Elected to the United States Senate in 1851, he represented Massachusetts as a member of the Free Soil Party, a coalition of anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats that he helped to organize. He gave his first speech in the Senate on 26 August 1852, denouncing the Fugitive Slave Act. By 1854, he had joined the newly-formed Republican Party. A noted abolitionist, he was rocketed to national prominence when he was attacked in the Senate chamber by South Carolina representative Preston Brooks in response to Sumner's anti-slavery "Crimes Against Kansas" speech, given at the height of the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis. The incident highlighted increasing polarization between the North and South over the issue of slavery, and is considered a catalytic event leading to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Original photographs of Sumner are exceedingly scarce, with only 4 daguerreotypes known, all held by institutions. In addition to those listed above, there is another Southworth & Hawes portrait where Sumner wears a similar, or perhaps the same coat (Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, 2005.27.449) as the one he wears in this ambrotype.

We have found no record of any other original photograph of Senator Sumner sold at auction. The example offered here is particularly noteworthy, because it may be the portrait of Sumner taken closest to when he was brutally attacked on the Senate floor on May 22nd, 1856.

The plate is uncased and retains its original seals that affix its cover glass.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Politics, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, Historic Photography, Early Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Hard Images, Union Cases]