William Constable [1783-1861]: Brighton Daguerreotypes Project

William Constable opened his seafront daguerreotype studio, ‘The Photographic Institution’, in 1841 on 57 Marine Parade, Brighton, just two years after the announcement of photography’s invention. It was the first studio in Brighton and among the first in England. Through the 1840s and 1850s, Constable, an artist, surveyor and inventor, welcomed royalty, nobility, friends and family to pose in ‘The Blue Room’ on a rotating platform to be seen in the best light.

William Constable [1783-1861]: Brighton Daguerreotypes Project is a 2026 research project between the Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. USA, and University of Brighton, UK. Led by Shannon Perich (Curator, Photographic History Collection, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History) and Annebella Pollen (Professor of Visual and Material Culture, University of Brighton), and supported by AHRC Techne PhD researchers Sylvie Jane Lewis and Sally Jones, the project generates original research about Constable’s life and work to provide new catalogue content for the 130 Constable daguerreotypes in the Smithsonian.

The large collection of English daguerreotypes was purchased at auction by Albert Boni and later donated to the museum in 1972 as part of large gift. The Constable daguerreotypes reside in the first collection of photography in a US museum dedicated to the history of the medium alongside Samuel FB Morse’s daguerreotype camera, Henry F. Jr’s 1840 self-portrait, Thomas Easterly’s portraits of Native Americans, and Meade Brothers daguerreotypes of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Among the Constable daguerreotypes are self-portraits, portraits of family and friends, aristocrats and other notable figures, as well as art objects including his own painting of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.