This was the first daguerreotype I bought, and having never seen one in real life before, it took me a moment to realise why it was not the same as the two ambrotypes I already owned. Of course I was very excited to have a daguerreotype, and I knew it must have been taken in the 1840s by the style of dress.

A week or two later I was looking at the biography of Charles Darwin by Adrian Desmond and James Moore (London: Michael Joseph, 1991), when I noticed the same backdrop scenery in my daguerreotype was also pictured in the 1842 daguerreotype of Darwin and his son William (owned by University College, London). I believe both of these daguerreotypes were taken by Antoine Claudet.