How The Only Known Daguerreotype of New York’s First Black Attorney was Discovered

The only known daguerreotype of New York’s First African American attorney George Boyer Vashon was recently discovered.

In June, the extraordinarily rare 1859 daguerreotype of George Boyer Vashon, a scholar and abolitionist who was the first practicing Black lawyer in New York State, was sold by Sotheby’s in June for $230,400. However, just one year earlier, in June 2025, the portrait had been sold by Christie’s for just $882.

When it was sold by Christie’s as part of the Maillet Daguerreotype Collection, it was simply listed as a photograph of “a well-dressed man with spectacles” with neither the sitter nor the photographer identified. Despite an estimated value of $1,000 to $1,500, the photograph sold for $882.

This year, Sotheby’s sold the same portrait for almost a quarter of a million dollars after specialists established who the man was and who had photographed him. Sotheby’s specialist Emily Bierman realized that the “well-dressed man with spectacles” was in fact Vashon, a significant figure in American legal and civil rights history.

‘My Dear Professor Loved This Picture’

Bierman discovered that the portrait was signed by “P. Haas, NY” which she identified as Philip Haas, an accomplished lithographer and among the earliest resident daguerreotypists in Washington, D.C. Haas was known for photographing prominent political figures such as President John Quincy Adams, and the resulting daguerreotype is the earliest known photograph of an American president.

Meanwhile, Bierman also found an endearing inscription inside the daguerreotype’s case that suggests the portrait was created for one of Vashon’s students in 1856.

“My dear Professor loved this picture, which I prize always — taken for me early in the summer of ‘56,” the inscription reads.

This led Bierman to recognize that the remarkable portrait showed Vashon and had been overlooked as a significant piece of American history. Sotheby’s says that no other known daguerreotype of Vashon has been identified, making this photograph exceptionally rare. Surviving images of Vashon largely consist of reproductions from later photographs, with original examples held by the George B. Vashon Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. The newly identified daguerreotype is believed to be the only known image of its kind.

Born in 1824, Vashon was the first Black graduate of Oberlin College and the first licensed African American attorney in New York state. His graduation was not only a personal achievement but also a significant milestone for the anti-slavery movement.

After being denied admission to the Pennsylvania bar because of his race, Vashon was admitted to the New York bar in 1848. In 1867, he was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. He later became Howard University’s first Black professor. In a symbolic act of redress, Vashon was posthumously admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 2010.