Meserve Collection Highlights: Modern Prints from Mathew Brady’s Portrait Negatives

Meserve Collection Highlights explores Mathew Brady’s work as a portrait photographer, a role that brought him recognition more than a decade before his Civil War photographs. The exhibition presents nine modern prints made from Brady’s original glass-plate photographic negatives, showing prominent figures from the Civil War era and beyond.

The exhibition also places Brady’s portraits in the context of the 19th-century photography market. His small, card-mounted photographs, known as cartes de visite, were relatively affordable and helped make photographic portraiture widely popular after their introduction in the United States in 1859. Visitors can also see an original glass-plate negative and one of Brady’s wooden storage boxes.

When: May 23, 2025–May 14, 2028

Venue: National Portrait Gallery

Location: First Floor, East Galleries

Featured subjects: Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ulysses S. Grant, and Emma, Queen of Hawai‘i

Collection: The works come from the Frederick Hill Meserve Collection. The National Portrait Gallery acquired more than 5,400 Brady studio negatives in 1981; they had originally been assembled by amateur historian Frederick Hill Meserve.

Historical context: Mathew Brady, who lived circa 1823–1896, is widely associated with documenting the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. Before the war, his portrait studios produced thousands of glass-plate negatives and prints for the growing market in photographic portraits.

Additional objects: One original glass-plate negative and one of Brady’s wooden storage boxes are included.

Tickets: Price not available