If I am correct in a Gilded Age date for this image, then it is a most unusual one for the time. Victorians made a fetish of female melancholy in both literature and art, but a small personal photograph taken in this manner, so closely cropped on the subject, with such shallow focal depth and luminous light on shadow, is rare indeed.
The dress is remarkable yet there is only the simplest ornament in the hair and a tiny crescent pin on the collar, no other jewelry. Taken by J. A Brush studio of Minneapolis, it is a masterful cabinet print that deserved better treatment than it got – parts of it looked like someone took sandpaper to it, requiring a great deal of retouching, but the restoration is faithful to the original.