Ambrotype...Rubytype photography 1852-1865

My maternal ancestors took lots of photographs. Between my two aunts and my mother there are at least four large photo albums, the albums themselves turn of the century. There are also the photographs in small, hinged, velvet lined cases (the cases made of molded varnish and sawdust), pinched in brass frames to hold the tintypes, or as the picture above, an ambrotype (1852-1865, collodion positive: one side of a very clean glass plate is covered with a thin layer of collodion, then dipped in a silver nitrate solution), often hand tinted like mine above, pinched in a brass or copper frame with another layer of glass over the top to protect it. What occurred to me this afternoon, looking at some of these old photos, was how odd it was that my ancestors, before the 1920's at least, didn't have the convenience of owning a camera, a camera phone to take a photo at a moment's notice, and had to make a special trip into town, in their "Sunday" clothes to have these photos taken, quite often to their discomfort, and most likely a costly thing for their day and yet they had so many photographs taken, many of them (in the photo albums at least) had been identified by my great-grandmother before she died. Having done genealogy, they were indispensable resources. As one of their descendants, I appreciate how important family must have been for them to take so many pictures, how they must have had some sense of preserving a history. Viewing them for me is like mysteriously peering into a window of the past, and strangely, like some familial or genetic type of collective consciousness.

The photograph is possibly Jane Newton (b. 1824, Co. Cork, IRE.) or Sarah Jane Moore (b. 1838 Co. Derry, IRE.), both a third great-grandmother, taken between 1852-1865, since it is an ambrotype, which is displayed here without it's case and copper frame. It is a beautiful picture, and literally, one of a kind, the only one in existence- they could not reproduce copies with this process since it was an exposure directly to the glass. I love how they tinted her cheeks rosy, and tinted her jewelry with gold. Holding it up to the light, the dark areas are transparent, reddish-brown glass. By 1864, Ambrotypes were fading into obscurity to the popular paper Carte De Visite photographs.

****I posted this lastnight on my Blogger page, and this morning I had a comment from Quinn Jacobson who actually teaches and does wet plate colloidion photography, and he confirmed that my photograph is in fact a "Rubytype", similar to an Ambrotype in process, but it is on ruby glass rather than clear glass, and doesn't have a black varnish or backing on the backside, which an Ambrotype would. I had not ran into the term "Rubytype" in trying to research my photo and searches come up as photography studios with Ruby in their names, or something completely unrelated, so apparently it is a bit rarer than I thought. I posted a responce, asking if he had any more info on it, and likewise if anyone here has a link or more info on the process I would greatly appreciate it.