Scant little is known about Francis Henry Grice, an intriguing figure from the early years of photography in America. He appears in the historical record briefly and without deeper biographical details, like so many other daguerreotypists in the 19th century. His output, much like the full circumstances of his life, remains shrouded in mystery.
It is generally understood that Francis was the son of Hezekiah Grice, a Baltimore-born free man of color involved heavily in the abolitionist movement. It is believed that the elder Grice emigrated to Haiti with his wife where his son Francis was born, in either 1824 or possibly 1835/36. And there is a possibility that Francis left in 1861.
In the September 19, 1855 issue of the NY Tribune, under byline Correspondence from Hayti there is a reference to Hezekiah Grice and his two sons, one of whom is a “daguerreotypist and photographist” and the other a dentist.
Alternatively, he may have been active in New York City, N.Y. in 1855. He reportedly moved to San Francisco, Calif. in 1866, according to John Craig’s Directory. A notice appears about Francis H. Grice in the April 24, 1868 issue of Elevator in San Francisco on April 24, 1868.
Was the family permanently settled in Haiti throughout this stretch of many years? Was there movement to and from the Eastern seaboard by the father and/or sons? Did Francis learn photography on trips to the United States, or in Haiti? Did he have a permanent studio, or was he itinerant, as the variety in his work suggests? Primary sources are few, and these questions remain unanswered at the present.
What is on offer is a group lot of 21 cased daguerreotypes, each stamped “F. Grice.” Upon inspection by Grant Romer, four of those plate packages remain sealed from the time of making. Little else is known, such as precisely when and where these were made, or of whom.
Apart from this incredible group of portraits, the only other known cache of works is now housed at the Library of Congress. In 1999, the photographer Anthony Barboza sold a large group of roughly two dozen works to the venerable institution; the Maillet's sold a number to the institution in the early 2000s.
In a phone conversation with Barboza in May, 2025, he spoke of his efforts throughout the 1970s and 80s to collect historical work by Black American photographers, including James Presley Ball, Augustus Washington, and Francis Henry Grice. Barboza recalled clearly his work travels across the country and his unrelenting efforts in innumerable towns to seek out bookstores and antique malls, asking to see any daguerreotypes on hand. In this way, he accumulated his collection, occasionally finding cased images by Ball, Grice and Washington in this manner, primarily in towns from the East Coast to the Midwest.
The opportunity that this additional group of Grice daguerreotypes represents for furthering our understanding of the era is immense. With various daguerreotypists, one can observe certain consistencies that help us understand a body of work. For instance, in the work of Southworth & Hawes, we have the luxury of studying a sustained body of work from a single studio with the same props used over many years. Naturally, there is a desire to apply the same methodology to the Grice works. Grice’s work doesn’t fit the mold of an established, upper middle class studio catering to wealthy clientele, like the Southworth & Hawes studio, leaving open the door for further scholarship.