I've always got an eye out for an old photogram or photogenic drawing--the latter term the earlier one, used by its inventor William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, literally meaning a drawing produced by light. This cabinet card photogram of a sprig of fern is stamped Eggers and Dunkirk, NY--likely the work of George A. H. Eggers (1849–1938), a notable 19th- and early 20th-century photographer and artist who opened a studio there in 1889, though possibly the work of his son, George W. Eggers, who he trained, and who went on to quite a notable career as an artist, educator and arts administrator, including as Director of the Art Institute of Chicago (1916-21), Denver Art Museum (1921-26) and Worcester Art Museum (1926-30.)
4 7/16" x 6 1/8". Good condition, with general light surface wear. The ground of the photograph, reading her as black, in hand has a bit more of a very deep brown tone.
