Portrait of a Couple, c. 1846

Marcus Aurelius Root learned the daguerreotype process from Robert Cornelius c. 1840 (see lot 347) and bought the 140 Chestnut Street business of John Jabez Edwin Mayall in 1846 (see lot 348). His 'empire' included a number of studios in the South, as well as a gallery in New York (managed by his brother Samuel). Root's 1864 treatise, The Camera and the Pencil, is an acclaimed early survey of the medium.