Two older women posed in deliberately old-fashioned or theatrical costume occupy this full-length albumen print carte-de-visite, produced by D. E. Smith at No. 18 Main Street, Bordentown, New Jersey, circa 1865 to 1875. The exaggerated props, mismatched dress, and comic staging identify this as a genre or costume portrait rather than a conventional likeness, a popular parlor photography tradition of the period.

The seated woman wears a plain dark dress with a white fichu and white cap, wire-rimmed spectacles, and holds knitting needles with yarn; a wicker sewing basket sits on the floor between the figures. The standing woman wears a voluminous floral printed gown with wide sleeves, a large frilled bonnet with a trailing veil, and holds a pleated fan at her side while gesturing with one gloved finger toward the seated figure.

Costume and comic genre CDVs of this type, in which subjects dressed as stock characters such as old gossips, country wives, or theatrical types, were produced as humorous keepsakes and circulated among friends and family in the carte-de-visite exchange culture of the 1860s and 1870s.

The reverse bears the printed imprint of D. E. Smith, Photographer, No. 18 Main Street, Bordentown, N.J., with a decorative vignette of a camera, palette, and brushes.