American author Bret Harte is portrayed in a three-quarter bust CDV by Sarony, 680 Broadway, New York, signed on the front mount Bret Harte, possibly in the author's own hand. The portrait shows the writer in middle age in a relaxed seated pose with his arms folded, wearing a light-colored suit jacket over a waistcoat and white shirt with a loosely knotted tie. His hair and full beard are light in tone, slightly graying, and his expression is direct and confident. The Sarony imprint in script appears at the lower front border.

The signature on the front mount is in Harte's hand, adding significant interest to an already desirable celebrity portrait from one of New York's premier studios. The plain yellow reverse card stock is a distinctive Sarony presentation variant used during the 1870s and 1880s.

Bret Harte (1836–1902) was the defining literary voice of the California Gold Rush era, celebrated for short stories including The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868), The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1869), and Tennessee's Partner that brought the rough world of the California mining camps to a national readership with unprecedented vividness and sympathy. His sudden rise to fame after the publication of The Luck of Roaring Camp made him the most celebrated American short story writer of his generation, earning him the editorship of The Overland Monthly and subsequently a lucrative contract with The Atlantic Monthly. He spent his later years in Europe as U.S. Consul in Germany and Scotland.

The reverse is plain yellow card stock with no imprint and dealer code 4/23/16 / LOCDXZ.