Description
Terrific early image of a seated Canadian soldier in full uniform holding his bayonet. His cheeks are gently tinted pink. Housed in original patriotic paper mat. The back featured an applied label identifying the photographer as J.D. Wallis Melainotype Artist. Rooms over Parker’s Drug Store on Market Square, Kingston, Ont. As per the best reference in 19th century Ontario photographers ‘The Ontario Photographers’ by Glen C. Phillips (the bible), Wallis was in business from 1869 to 1873. There is also a period ink notation simply stating ‘Father’ on the back.
2.375 x 3.875 inches
This is an early tintype photography using the Melainotype process, were “melaino” means dark or black. The Tintype process was invented in 1852 by a Frenchman Adolphe Alexander Martin. The Melainotype process was developed in America in 1854 by Hamilton Smith, a chemistry professor at Kenyon college in Ohio and then sold the patent rights to Peter Neff Jr., one of Smith’s students. The melainotype process was patented on 19 february 1856. The use of an iron plate instead of glass greatly reduced the cost of the photograph. The Melainotype process was essentially a variation of the Ambrotype process invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851, but applied to an iron plate that was first painted with black japan varnish, then coated with collodian, sensitized, exposed, and then fixed permanent. The Melainotype photos used a thicker iron plate, than that of more modern tintypes. The quality is also typically better than more modern tintypes. Images were created in black and white and were often hand-painted or tinted.
