Unidentified photographer
1854 (ca)
[Surveyor]

Daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Gift of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2019, Accession Number: 2019.248
 
This portrait of a surveyor from an unknown daguerreotype studio was made during the heyday of the Daguerreian era in the United States, a time that coincided with an increased need for survey data and maps for the construction of railways, bridges, and roads. The unidentified surveyor, seated in a chair, grasps one leg of the tripod supporting his transit, a type of theodolite or surveying instrument that comprised a compass and rotating telescope. The carefully composed scene, in which the angle of the man's skyward gaze is aligned with the telescope and echoed by one leg of the tripod, conflates its surveyor subject with an astronomer. As a result, the lands of young America are compared to the vast reaches of space, with both territories full of potential discovery.
 
LL/95752