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The “Davis” Daguerreotype

Virtually nothing is known of this daguerreotype, whose existence is documented solely through a photographic reproduction (fig. 72) formerly owned by Mr. Winfield Robbins and presently owned by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The photograph, a reversed copy of the “Annie” daguerreotype (fig. 20), is accompanied by a note written by Mr. Robbins: “Edgar Allan Poe Enlarged from a daguerreotype formerly in possession of Mrs. Clemm, now (1907) owned by Maj. A. H. Davis, La Floridiana, Naples.” Major Davis died in London in 1910, and no further trace of the daguerreotype — if indeed it was a daguerreotype, rather than an ordinary copy photograph — has been found.