American author Bayard Taylor is portrayed in a three-quarter seated bust CDV published by E. Anthony, 501 Broadway, New York, from a photographic negative by Brady's National Portrait Gallery, showing the poet, novelist, and diplomat in middle age in a dark coat and waistcoat with a white shirt and black bow tie. Taylor sits turned slightly to his left, his full dark beard and mustache neatly groomed, his expression serious and his posture composed. The composition is formal and direct, consistent with the Brady portrait style of the 1860s.

The E. Anthony and Brady collaboration at 501 Broadway produced one of the most extensive portrait CDV series of American public figures of the Civil War era, distributing likenesses of authors, politicians, military figures, and celebrities to a national market. A penciled inscription on the reverse reads Bayard Taylor / 1825–1878.

Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) was one of the most widely traveled and prolific American writers of the nineteenth century, best known in his lifetime as a travel writer and lecturer whose accounts of journeys to Africa, India, Japan, China, and the American West drew enormous audiences on the lecture circuit. He also produced poetry, novels, and criticism, and his translation of Goethe's Faust (1870–71) in the original meters was regarded as the standard American edition for decades. He was appointed U.S. Minister to Germany in 1878 but died in Berlin shortly after taking up the post.

The reverse bears a penciled inscription reading Bayard Taylor / 1825–1878 with the E. Anthony publisher's imprint from Brady's National Portrait Gallery and dealer code 5/03/15 / DOLF1.