The only known daguerreotype of George Boyer Vashon, a scholar and abolitionist who was the first practicing Black lawyer in New York State | Sotheby’s

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.…