English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson is portrayed in an oval vignette bust CDV by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, operating at 224 Regent Street, London, and 91 King's Road, Brighton, presenting the Poet Laureate in a soft three-quarter profile that captures his celebrated leonine appearance. Tennyson faces slightly to his left, his long dark curling hair falling to his collar and his full dark beard clearly visible, wearing a dark coat with a wide lapel. The oval vignette format gives the image a painterly quality, the edges of the composition softly vignetted against the plain card ground.

Mayall's studios held royal patronage and produced authorized portrait series of leading British literary and public figures throughout the 1860s and 1870s, and the Tennyson portraits made there were among the most widely circulated photographic likenesses of the poet during his lifetime. The card is mounted on plain stock with the Mayall imprint on the reverse noting exhibition medals from London 1862, Paris 1865, and Paris 1867.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) served as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 until his death, one of the longest and most celebrated tenures in the history of the office. He is best known for In Memoriam A.H.H., Idylls of the King, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Ulysses, and The Lady of Shalott. His verse defined the public poetic voice of the Victorian era, and he was one of the first literary figures to be elevated to the peerage solely on the basis of his literary achievement.

The reverse bears a penciled inscription reading Tennyson with the Mayall studio imprint and dealer code 9/17/11 / OOLAEZ.