ST. LOUIS — A rare daguerreotype recently identified as a portrait of George Boyer Vashon, the namesake of St. Louis’ Vashon High School and a pioneering Black attorney, sold at Sotheby’s for $230,400. This, after it was previously sold at Christie’s for just $882, according to Sotheby’s auction records.
The daguerreotype, created in 1856 by photographer Philip Haas, was originally listed by Christie’s in June 2025 as an image of “a well-dressed man with spectacles” by an unknown photographer. After its purchase, Sotheby’s specialists researched the image and identified the subject as Vashon, one of the most influential Black leaders of the 19th century.
According to Sotheby’s, Vashon was the first licensed African American attorney in New York state and the first Black graduate of Oberlin College. Born in 1824, he was denied admission to the Pennsylvania bar because of his race before gaining admission in New York in 1848.
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Vashon went on to build a distinguished career as a lawyer, educator, abolitionist, poet and civil rights advocate. He taught at New York Central College, one of the nation’s earliest racially integrated institutions, and later became Howard University’s first Black professor. He also helped establish Howard’s law school and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1867, according to Sotheby’s…