photo dating Alexander horsburgh

[histcoll]

Can anyone date approximately these two photo's Attached. They are supposedly of my 3 times great grandparent's and taken in the 1840's. I doubt very much if it is so and think myself that the time period is more like the 1880's or even later still 

[sonofthom]

Photography dates back to the 1840s so it is very unlikely that these are that old. Details of the photographer are usually on the back of early photographs, and/or on the lower margin on the front and this can be a big help in pinning down the date; is there any such info?

[Gadget]

Both look 1860s but somehow don't ring true of the photo style of that period. This is particularly true of the woman.

[jim1]

These are curious.
Agree with Gadget they don't look 1860's.
His dress style is typical 1840's/50's but probably wouldn't look that out of place
in the early 60's.
However the only technique available up to the late 1850's was the ambrotype
which was imprinted on glass  (1840's daguerreotype on copper).
These images came out as a mirror image & are in reverse, this isn't.
The other is a girl although she appears to be wearing a lot of jewellery.
Her clothes style is that of the 1850's/60's.
Older women didn't dress like this so she would be under 17/18.
It also looks like there is a crack across the face of it indicating an
ambrotype.
So I would suggest he is an 1840's/50's copy of the original that has been
reversed at some time or his waistcoat is fastened the other way as this style could do both.
She is a copy of an 1850's/60's teenager.
Below are couple of examples of girls wear c. 1860.

[Gadget]

I'm a bit concerned about suggesting this, Jim, but could they be fake-type photo.

 I had a photo sent to me, supposedly my 3x great. I was suspicious as her granddaughter had exactly the same hands. I then discovered that the granddaughter was used to dressing up for a niece who was a photographer. More oddities were discovered.  It was definitely not 3x granny. It even fooled Prue for a while.

Gadget

[jim1]

I would expect the quality to be better than this if they were.

[histcoll]

Thanks everyone for your input dating these two photos. They were originally uploaded to Ancestry by descendants of the supposed couple. Unfortunately I have been unable to track down the person who first put them on as this may discover photographer details and anything written on the back of the original image, if indeed it was an original and not a copy from somewhere else, George

[sonofthom]

A wee extra point but as the couple are presumably Scottish are you aware that Horsburgh was the name of an Edinburgh photographer whose business, including family members. ran from 1861 to 1915? Early photography was expensive and so portraits were out of the reach of most people, although if your family was in the trade then it was more likely that there would be portraits. We own an 1854 family portrait because my wife had an ancestor who was a well known early photographer. Could there be a connection to the Edinburgh photographers?

[Treetotal]

I resisted dating these for reasons mention by Jim and Gadget, the second photo concerns me as her head looks too big for her body IMHO.
Carol