Two Children with Toys (c. 1855): Art, History and Details

Two Children with Toys (c. 1855) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Unidentified Photographer.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Children have always been particularly cherished subjects for photography. Portraits were made to preserve the memory of their stages of growth and, in an age when long-distance travel was rare, to share with faraway relatives. And, for a sadder reason: in 1840 an estimated one-third of children died before age five. Photography offered grieving parents the opportunity to immortalize their children’s features. This tragic genre of photographs, later called “post-mortems,” often depicts the children in fine clothing, laying down with eyes shut, as if merely napping.

Object facts

• Title: Two Children with Toys
• Date: c. 1855
• Creator attribution: Unidentified Photographer
• Culture: America
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: daguerreotype, quarter-plate
• Dimensions: Image: 10.8 x 8.3 cm (4 1/4 x 3 1/4 in.); Case: 12.1 x 9.4 cm (4 3/4 x 3 11/16 in.); Matted: 61 x 50.8 cm (24 x 20 in.)
• Collection: PH - American 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2002.32

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.