Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is portrayed in a three-quarter bust CDV published by the New York Photographic Company, No. 453 Broadway, New York, showing the American poet in middle age in a dark coat and waistcoat with a white shirt and loosely knotted cravat, his body turned slightly to his right and his expression composed and thoughtful. Longfellow's dark hair, lightly graying at the temples, is combed back from his forehead, and his full dark beard is neatly groomed, giving him a distinguished and dignified appearance. The name Longfellow appears in script lettering on the front mount below the image. The reproduction is an engraved or lithographic print rather than a direct albumen photograph.

The New York Photographic Company at 453 Broadway was a publisher and distributor of portrait CDVs rather than a portrait studio, producing reproductions from existing photographic or painted originals for the commercial collectible market. The shield device on the reverse is the company's standard imprint.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was the most widely read American poet of the nineteenth century, celebrated for The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline, Paul Revere's Ride, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and The Village Blacksmith. He was the first American to be honored with a bust in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey, and his translations of Dante's Divine Comedy remain among the most respected American literary translations of the period. He taught at Harvard for eighteen years and his Cambridge home, Craigie House, is preserved as a National Historic Site.

The reverse bears the New York Photographic Company publisher's shield imprint at No. 453 Broadway, New York, and dealer code COLEZ.