Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Benjamin Paul Akers, who usually went by his middle name, was a well-known sculptor in the mid-19th century. Older brother to Jeannie Akers Bradbury, one of his best-known works was The Dead Pearl Diver, which is now in the Portland Museum of Art. The daguerreotype was taken when Akers was between twenty-five and twenty-seven. He died of tuberculosis in 1861 when he was only thirty-six.