Cabinet card portrait depicting a costumed African American woman with two young girls, photographed by Henshel at 3136 Cottage Grove Avenue in Chicago. All three subjects wear elaborately beaded and embroidered garments, with the woman at center dressed in an ornate outfit accented by a beaded headdress, jewelry, and a long, patterned overskirt decorated with a winged dragon. The girl at right wears her hair in a teased, voluminous afro, a trademark look often marketed under the “Circassian beauty” sideshow act, a popular exoticized trope in 19th-century American circuses and dime museums. The second child, at left, wears an equally theatrical costume adorned with stripes, lace, and ribbon.

Period pencil on the reverse reads, “Circus,” and possibly identifies one sitter as “Thomas B. Smith,” though the attribution is uncertain. Dated faintly in pencil “Dec 18 / 88.” The location and composition strongly suggest these subjects were performers associated with a traveling circus or cabinet of curiosities. The image provides a rare glimpse into the role of women and children, particularly performers of African descent, within the racially coded visual culture of 19th-century American entertainment.

An exceptional and highly uncommon portrait from the late 1880s, blending ethnographic spectacle, stage costuming, and photographic artistry.