Just as I love antique daguerreotypes of painted portraits, I love old photographs of photographs, which this appears to be, with a small tear in the original image at lower left giving it away. The tear is not in this photograph; rather, it seems that a photograph--of fairly unremarkable looking house, a farmhouse I guess with what looks like a small barn next to it--was placed on a brown paper ground and rephotographed to yield the image here, which was then mounted to card, which is visible as the very dark brown around the far perimeter. Whether the white band that runs vertically over the house on the left side was part of the original photo or native to this photo is unclear, but makes it all the more curious. And then there is a small stain on this photo, above the photographed tear, which adds to a tension between subject, image, and object.
5 1/4" x 4 1/4" as mounted. Overall good condition, with stain as noted and corner wear to the card as documented.
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