A quarter-plate daguerreotype presents a winter occupational portrait of a maple-syrup worker posed in the studio with the tools of his trade. The sitter stands in webbed snowshoes, hat on, and grips the tongue of a low wooden hand-sled. A coopered barrel rests on the runners behind him, chocked in place for hauling. The plain backdrop and patterned floor covering concentrate attention on the equipment and the body language of a man prepared to pull his load out of deep snow.

Maple sugaring in the Northeast reached industrial scale by mid century. Sap was gathered in late winter when freezing nights and thawing days set the flow, then moved through the woods to a sugarhouse in barrels like the one pictured. Hand-sleds and snowshoes were indispensable in rough terrain before wheeled carts could travel, and images that depict both pieces of gear together are exceptionally scarce in the daguerreian record. The plate reads as a proud declaration of trade identity, likely commissioned by a farmer-merchant who combined woodland collection with small-scale distribution of syrup or sugar.

Quarter-plate daguerreotype, approximately 3¼ by 4¼ inches. Likely New England or Canada, circa 1848 to 1855. An uncommon and informative depiction of nineteenth-century maple production and winter work.