Portrait of a Youth, c. 1839

Robert Cornelius stands as one of the most significant figures in the early history of photography in America. Along with Henry Fitz, he is credited with taking one of the very first photographic "selfies". In October 1839, with the assistance of chemist Paul Beck Goddard, Cornelius created what is now recognized as one of the first photographic portraits in America— his own self-portrait. Standing outside his family's store with arms crossed, Cornelius removed the lens cap, ran into frame, and stood still for approximately one minute before covering the lens again. The resulting image shows a slightly disheveled young man with tousled hair—an image that would become an iconic milestone in photographic history.

The four daguerreotypes found in the Maillet Collection are of unidentified sitters, including two women, a youth, and a studio portrait of a man with striking similarities to Cornelius himself.

As a skilled lamp manufacturer, metallurgist, and pioneering photographer in 1830s Philadelphia, Cornelius bridged the worlds of craftsmanship and emerging photographic technology. Born to Dutch immigrants in Philadelphia in 1809, Cornelius joined his father's successful lamp manufacturing business as a young man. The family's lamp shop, located at 8th and Cherry Streets, specialized in silver plating and metal polishing—skills that would prove instrumental to Cornelius's photographic experiments.

When news of Louis Daguerre's revolutionary photographic process reached American shores in 1839, Cornelius immediately recognized its potential. The daguerreotype process involved exposing a silver-plated copper sheet to iodine vapor, which thus creates a light-sensitive surface. After a lengthy exposure in a camera, the image was developed with mercury vapor and fixed with a salt-water solution.

In the earliest years, before there was an industry that supported photographers, the process could go wrong at multiple steps, including both sensitizing and exposure times, and required precisely polished silver plates—a technique Cornelius had mastered through his lamp-making business. His metallurgical expertise allowed him to create superior plates for daguerreotyping with highly reflective surfaces that captured images with remarkable clarity for the time.

Cornelius went on to operate one of America's first photographic studios from 1841 to 1843 but eventually returned to lamp manufacturing as it proved more profitable. Though his photographic career was brief, his contributions to early American photography remain significant. His self-portrait, now housed in the Library of Congress, stands as testament to American ingenuity at the dawn of the photographic era.