As promised here are some photos of some of our  finds from the weekend.

First up is this  stunning antiuque Louis XV style frame complete with original photo.

Next up ius this fabulous and rare 1880's Napoleon III framed ambrotype of a French couple and their 6 children.

I would love to know what was going through her mind at the time the photo was taken and how they got the children to stay still and and look at the camera without blinking.

A bit of history about AmbrotypesThe ambrotype also known as a collodion positive, first appeared in about 1853.By the 1860s the process had largely disappeared from high street studios, but it remained popular with itinerant open-air photographers until the 1880s, because portraits could be made in a few minutes while sitters waited.The collodion positive process, which was based on the collodion negative process invented by Frederick Scott Archer, reversed a negative image by bleaching the silver salts. The dark areas which would normally form the highlights in a printed image turned pale, and the clear areas which would form the shadows in the print appeared to be dark.When presented against a black background, the dark areas of the original negative, which had been bleached with nitric acid or bichloride of mercury, appeared as highlights. The black backing, visible through the clear areas of the plate that originally formed the highlights, appeared as shadows.
I am always happy when I see an antique Chocolate Mo...