CDV portrait of American author Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. by Silsbee, Case & Co., Photograph Artists, 299½ Washington Street, Boston, shows the physician, poet, and essayist in a formal three-quarter seated pose against a plain graduated backdrop. Holmes appears in a dark double-breasted frock coat with a black bow tie, seated with his right arm resting across his knee and his body turned slightly to his left. His expression is composed and alert, his features clean-shaven with close-cropped hair.

The image reflects the restrained studio style of Silsbee, Case & Co., one of Boston's leading photographic firms of the 1860s and 1870s. A W. L. Abbott & Co. dealer stamp at 922 Washington Street, Boston, appears on the reverse alongside the studio imprint, with a penciled inscription reading "O.W. Holmes" and dealer code "8/16/09 / DOFGXZ Eb."

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) was a central figure in Boston's intellectual life, a professor of anatomy at Harvard Medical School, and a founding contributor to The Atlantic Monthly. He is best known for his Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table series and poems including "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus."