At 50, still in the blush of youth by today’s silvered political standards, Porter has plenty of highway ahead of her.

Ms Quinn said: "Daguerre developed a way of taking pictures using a polished silvered plate and a camera. This produced a single image printed directly onto a plate with astonishing clarity, named the daguerreotype."

Seventeen years after the Tripod fire, the silvered trunks of dead trees still stand on many slopes.

One high status woman in her 20s with mixed ancestry was laid to rest near modern Cambridge under a prominent mound with silvered jewelry, amber beads, and a whole cow.

One wall-mounted piece matches a nest of heavy black wire to a branch of metallic-tinted bamboo, and two collages include silvered leaves.