A Descriptive analysis of Ten Painted Tintypes from the George Eastman House Collection

This thesis is a descriptive analysis of a selected group of ten painted tintypes from the George Eastman House collection. All ten objects are large, heavily overpainted portraits with dates ranging from the 1860s to the 1890s, which is considered the peak of the painted tintype’s popularity. All ten tintypes share two significant features: they all have a completely overpainted, or in one case an abraded, background and they all share a collage-like look due to the use of different paints on one image. The thesis will investigate the painted tintypes’ aesthetics in relation to their time period considering the major social changes that occurred during the Victorian era. It will contextualize them in a broader tradition of painted photography and show their connection with the notions of time, space and memory as they were influenced by and shifted with the introduction of new communication and transportation technologies.