A massive ancient grapevine near Santa Barbara fills the frame of this albumen cabinet card, photographed by I.W. Taber of San Francisco and numbered B 1317 in his commercial view series. The vine's enormously gnarled and twisted trunk, comprising multiple thick woody stems braided together through decades of growth, supports a wide wooden pergola structure overhead. Taber issued this image as part of his expansive Pacific Coast view catalog, likely dating the photograph to the 1870s or 1880s.

The serpentine trunks rise from bare, debris-strewn earth and fan outward to meet the overhead lattice of rough-hewn wooden beams, their deeply furrowed bark rendered in sharp albumen detail. Dense ornamental grasses and shrubs fill the background beneath open sky, while vertical wooden posts frame the composition on either side.

Isiah West Taber operated his Photographic Parlors at 8 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, and built one of the most significant commercial view archives of the 19th-century American West, encompassing Yosemite, the Pacific Coast, Oregon, mining subjects, and California landscapes. The grapevine depicted is almost certainly the celebrated La Patera vine in the Santa Barbara area, long documented as one of the largest grapevines in the United States.

The printed caption on the mount face reads "B 1317 Big Grape-vine near Santa Barbara. Taber Photo., San Fra[ncisco]." The reverse bears the full Taber Photographic Parlors imprint with the studio's 8 Montgomery Street address and View Department advertisement.