Lost Daguerreotype of Elisha Kent Kane

Quarter Plate Daguerreotype of Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857)

The daguerrotype that I purchased recently at auction, virtually without competition, was incorrectly identified as a quarter plate daguerreotype of a British Royal Navy Officer posed with an eagle pommel presentation officer's sword. The cased image came from the estate of Kenneth Erwin, a collector from Michigan, who passed away last year. I waited patiently for weeks before the sale, hoping no one else would correctly identify the sitter as the famous American explorer, Elisha Kent Kane.

The daguerrotype, mat included, was the source for the published engraving pictured below. In his recent book, Raising Kane, author Mark Metzler Sawin dates the sitting for the daguerreotype as sometime in November of 1847, when the young Dr. Kane was an aide in the Mexican War. Upon examination of the daguerreotype outside of its case, I identified the plate maker's mark as Holmes, Booth and Haydens, who had incorporated in 1853. I then looked closer with magnification to determine if it was a copy plate. I noticed that the background appeared to have been manipulated somehow in a way in which I had never seen before in a daguerreotype. It looks as if the original plate had been etched or bitten somehow, by tool or intaglio print acid, to either disguise plate damage or to create a greater visual impact by brightening the dark background (see variant pose pictured below). It was then copied by a skilled daguerreotypist, quite possibly the original artist, who at this time has yet to be identified. Or perhaps, it was copied while in the process of being transformed into a printing plate, destined to posterity. I also observed faint uniform and rather subtle vertical lines running through the bottom center of the plate (look carefully at the pommel of the sword). These were not actual scratches in the plate but rather photographically reproduced. 

I  hope to make thoughtful and accurate observations. Then connect the dots, so to speak. Everything else is speculation. Do other daguerreotypes of this sitting exist? Only time will tell. After all, this is the second image of Kane I have discovered in recent years. The other was a previously unknown 6th plate ambrotype. It is illustrated in an earlier post on this site. Ironically I sold it last year through the very same auction house that had offered my recent purchase.

Engraving after a daguerreotype of Elisha Kent Kane published in Century Magazine, August 1898

A variant pose from the same sitting found on the internet, original source unknown

Elisha Kent Kane (February 28, 1820 – February 16, 1857) was an American explorer, and a medical officer in the United States Navy during the first half of the 19th century. He was a member of two Arctic expeditions to rescue the explorer Sir John Franklin. He was present at the discovery of Franklin's first winter camp, but he did not find out what had happened to the fatal expedition.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kane was the son of John Kintzing Kane, a U.S. district judge, and Jane Duval Leiper. His brother was attorney, diplomat, abolitionist, and American Civil War general Thomas L. Kane. Kane graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1842. On September 14, 1843, he became Assistant Surgeon in the Navy. He served in the China Commercial Treaty mission under Caleb Cushing, in the Africa Squadron,[2] and in the United States Marine Corps during the Mexican-American War. One battle that Kane fought in was at Nopalucan on January 6, 1848. At (sic) Napoluca, he captured, befriended and saved the life of Mexican General Antonio Gaona and the General's wounded son.

Kane was appointed senior medical officer of the Grinnell Arctic expedition of 1850–1851 under the command of Edwin de Haven, which searched unsuccessfully for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin.[4] It is worth noting that in this expedition, the crew discovered Sir John Franklin's first winter camp. Kane then organized and headed the Second Grinnell expedition which sailed from New York on May 31, 1853, and wintered in Rensselaer Bay. Though suffering from scurvy, and at times near death, he resolutely pushed on and charted the coasts of Smith Sound and the Kane Basin, penetrating farther north than any other explorer had done up to that time. At Cape Constitution he discovered the ice-free Kennedy Channel, later followed by Isaac Israel Hayes, Charles Francis Hall, Augustus Greely, and Robert E. Peary in turn as they drove toward the North Pole.

In 1852, Kane met the Fox sisters, famous for their supposed powers as mediums, and became enamored with the middle sister, Margaret (Maggie). As a devout Roman Catholic, Kane was convinced that the sisters were engaged in fraud under the direction of their sister Leah, and sought to break Margaret from the milieu. Margaret eventually converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and the two married. After Kane's death, Margaret would eventually return to her spiritualist activities.

Kane finally abandoned the icebound brig Advance on May 20, 1855 and escaped the clutches of the frozen north by an 83-day march of indomitable courage to Upernavik. The party, carrying the invalids, lost only one man in the retreat to stand in the annals of Arctic exploration as the archetype of victory over defeat. Kane and his men were saved by a sailing ship. Kane returned to New York on October 11, 1855 and the following year published his two-volume "Arctic Explorations."

After visiting England to fulfill his promise to deliver his report personally to Lady Franklin, he sailed to Havana, Cuba in a vain attempt to recover his health, after being advised to do so by his doctor. He died there on February 16, 1857.

His body was brought to New Orleans, and carried by a funeral train to Philadelphia; the train was met at nearly every platform by a memorial delegation, and is said to have been the longest funeral train of the century excepting only Lincoln's.

- from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia