ROBERT H. VANCE (d. 1876)

Portrait of Horatio G. Finch

Details

ROBERT H. VANCE (d. 1876)
Portrait of Horatio G. Finch
Mammoth-plate daguerreotype. 1855. Paper label inscribed Horatio G. Finch, taken 1855. By R.H. Vance, San Francisco, Cala. in ink affixed to the reverse of the plate. Inscription Please send me to my brother Hiram G. Finch, Noblesville Hamilton County Indiana or to Fabius M. Finch Franklin Johnson County Indiana in ink on paper label affixed to the reverse of the original backing. Contained in period frame.

Provenance

Collection of the late Abraham Stransky, Sotheby's, New York, 18 April 1996, lot 69.

Lot Essay

Born in 1819 in Hamilton County, Indiana, Horatio G. Finch resided there until the age of 27 when he took a clerk's position in a quartermaster's office during the Mexican War. Three years later, in 1849, he traveled to California aboard the steamer Panama where he pursued several mining jobs at the north fork of the American River and at Big Bar. Later, he moved to Benicia and then to San Francisco where he again held a clerk's position in a quartermaster's office. Following the Civil War, Finch settled in Solano County and became a successful farmer.

Daguerreotypes of this size are very rare.