"Enhanced Daguerreotype Of An Elegant Young Person Circa 1850"
Colorized daguerreotype of an elegant young man in a frock coat with a pocket watch leaning on a table with a damask tablecloth. In its period Napoleon III style setting. On the back, label of "M.Ruef, portrait au daguerreotype, 41 Faubourg Saint-Denis" - Image at sight 7.5 x 9.5 cm - Frame 24 x27 cm The daguerreotype is the first photographic process developed by Nicéphore Niépce then Louis Daguerre and offered to the whole world (except the United Kingdom) by France in 1839. It is both a negative and a positive, hence this characteristic mirror effect. In the 19th century they were also poetically called “the mirrors that remember”.
https://www.lavalisearlesienne.com/product-page/daguerr%C3%A9otype-portrait-jeune-el%C3%A9gant-circa-1850