Doesn't get much moodier than this one, feeling almost like a post mortem of these two dolls! Early photographs of girls with their dolls are not too hard to come by, but much rarer to find portraits of dolls alone, and here a pair, both with painted porcelain heads and porcelain arms, but slightly different from one another (I'd call the one at left the older sister!) And with what looks like a doll bed behind them, which they are leaning up against. The tintype, under glass, is dark for sure, and not in crisp focus, and the surface appears somewhat grainy, almost like the that of a sandpaper painting (sprinkled with diamond dust!) A bit haunting feeling, really, which I love.
3 1/4 x 2 7/8, under glass, c. 1860s. I do not know whether the tintype has ever been removed from the wrap, but it looks pretty untouched and I have not opened it.
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