Two albumen prints by Isaiah West Taber of San Francisco are mounted recto and verso on a single album page, each bearing Taber's printed imprint and catalog number in the lower margin. The first, numbered B 412, presents the panoramic view from Mariposa Trail looking down into Yosemite Valley, with sheer granite walls rising on both sides, a pair of cascading waterfalls visible on the left cliff face, Half Dome receding into the hazy distance, and a solitary tall pine silhouetted against the open sky at right. The second, numbered B 2625, depicts the Three Brothers formation at 4,000 feet looking up the valley, the three stepped granite peaks framed by dense conifers and a calm reflective pool along a sandy riverbank in the foreground.

Isaiah West Taber operated his San Francisco studio from 1871 onward and became one of the foremost commercial photographers of Yosemite, continuing and expanding the survey tradition established by Carleton Watkins. His numbered Yosemite series was widely distributed through his Market Street gallery and remains among the most collected nineteenth-century Western landscape photography.

The lower margin of the first print reads "B 412. Best general view of the Yosemite Valley, from Mariposa Trail. Taber Photo., San Francisco." The second reads "B 2625 The Three Brothers, 4,000 ft. (looking up the Valley.) Taber Photo., San Francisco." The album page measures 8 1/2 by 12 1/4 inches, with each image approximately 4 3/4 by 7 1/4 inches.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer