A young woman seated beside an ornately carved studio prop table is the subject of this albumen CDV, produced by the Richmond Photograph Co. at 827½ Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia. The studio was active during the 1880s and catered to a broad clientele in post-Reconstruction Richmond, making portraits such as this one a significant record of Black community life in the city during that era.

She wears a light-colored dress with lace trim at the collar and cuffs, a ruffled bib front, and a small pin or brooch at the throat. Her hair is parted and drawn back close to the head, and she meets the camera with a composed, direct gaze. Her right hand rests atop a small stack of cartes de visite or photographs placed on the carved table beside her.

The inclusion of a stack of photographs as a prop is a particularly deliberate compositional choice, lending the portrait a self-aware quality uncommon in standard studio work of the period.

The reverse bears the printed imprint of Richmond Photograph Co., 827½ Broad St., Richmond, VA, within an elaborate engraved decorative border.

From the collection of James Lee Soffer