Hello, Dolley? Earliest Known Photograph of a First Lady Comes to Auction

Sometime around May 1846, Dolley Madison made her way from her home near the White House to the studio of an enterprising photographer who had begun a quixotic effort to create a daily publication featuring portraits of “interesting public characters.”

The nearly 80-year-old former first lady and reigning grande dame of the capital sat for a portrait draped in a crocheted shawl, her curls peeking out from under her signature turban. But the photographer’s enterprise soon went bust, and the images captured that day disappeared into the slipstream of history.

Now, one of the daguerreotypes made that day is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s, which is billing it as the earliest known photograph of a first lady.

The daguerreotype, which opens for online bidding on June 12, carries an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. Emily Bierman, the global head of the auction house’s photography department, calls it “the most important and exciting photographic portrait to come to market since John Quincy Adams.”

By John Quincy Adams, Bierman means the oldest known photographic image of a president — a half-plate daguerreotype that Sotheby’s sold in 2017 for $360,500, including the buyer’s premium. That image showed him sitting cross-legged, trousers hiked up to reveal a pair of “cute white socks,” as Bierman put it.

In the Madison image, what leaps off the tarnished quarter-plate is the delicate filigree of her crocheted shawl, and her direct — and slightly amused? — gaze.