[CIVIL WAR] Soldier & Family

Quarter plate tintype with some hand-tinting. Housed in full pressed paper case with floral motif.

A beautiful and sensitive family portrait with a soldier in uniform. He wears his shell jacket and McDowell-style forage cap while holding his youngest daughter, whose dress has been tinted pink. The soldier's wife, wearing a delicately patterned dress, sits next to him and holds a cased image portrait- likely from an absent family member. The oldest daughter, with short hair and a necklace, stands behind her parents.

This portrait appears to have been taken by a field photographer- the edge of the plain backdrop visible on the right edge.

The soldier’s face bears a distinct melancholy, suggestive of the burden of leaving for or returning to the front.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Cased Images, Tintypes]