Daguerreotype copy of a portrait of George Cooke at work on a portrait of Henry Clay

An unusual subject for a daguerreotype: a painting (probably a self-portrait) of a painter at work on a portrait of Henry Clay.

This is particularly important as the portrait of Henry Clay was destroyed by fire in 1954.  

George Esten Cooke (1793 - 1849), was active and lived in Maryland, District Of Columbia. He was an itinerant portrait painter.

By 1839 George Cooke was in Washington, engaged in painting a "full life-size portrait of Henry Clay." ... He completed three portraits of Clay full-length, as well as a bust portrait. The latter may have been from a sitting, though there is no record of such a sitting. Of the three heroic portraits, one is at the courthouse at Ashland, Virginia, and another remains at the University of Alabama. The third was at the Chicago Historical Society until destroyed by fire in 1954. [Amy, Clifford (1990) "Henry Clay and the American State Portrait," The Kentucky Review: Vol. 10: No. 3, Article 4]