A cabinet card photo of two individuals before a painted backdrop depicting an ornate but faded scenery. The unidentified man sits in a rattan chair positioned in the left field of the portrait. His body is oriented to the viewer’s right, while his gaze is directed toward the center-left toward the camera’s lens. His hair is cut close to the scalp and his face is clean-shaven. He wears a dark three-piece suit. The single-breasted jacket is unbuttoned to reveal a waistcoat with five fabric-covered buttons and a watch fob hanging from the waistcoat’s third buttonhole. Beneath the waistcoat, he wears a starched white-collar shirt with a thin white diamond point bow tie. He wears dark leather ankle boots. He wears a ring on his fourth proper left finger. He holds a drooping plant sprig, possibly a desert willow, in the same hand, which rests atop his thigh. His right arm rests upon the chair’s armrest, and the woman’s right hand upon his right shoulder. Positioned to the man’s left, the unidentified woman’s posture and gaze are directed toward the camera. Her pupils are hand-colored black, suggesting that the studio made this adjustment post-production. Her hair is neatly pulled away from her face and adorned with dark taffeta ribbons. She wears a high-collar blouse with gathers at the front. The neutral color of her blouse is set against a bright white waistband and sleeve cuffs. The pouch-like shape of her blouse resembles what late nineteenth-century department store catalogs classify as the “French style.” The blouse is tucked into a long, dark, high-waisted, gored skirt with vertical stripes. The back and side of the skirt are pulled around the woman’s left. A long pleat runs horizontally near the bottom of the skirt. The woman wears a ring on her left ring finger. The card on which the albumen print is mounted is of a textured ivory cardboard backing with a stamped rectangular frame around the photograph. The bottom right corner of the pasted image has been torn. There is an illegible inscription handwritten in pencil on the back of the card.
Date inferred from the style of cabinet card and attire of the sitters.
Metadata for this photograph was created by students as part of the course Curating Hidden Collections & the Black Archive in Fall 2023. Further information about their work can be found in the companion website: http://sites.udel.edu/baltimorecollection/.
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