A distinguished unidentified man sits for a quarter plate daguerreotype made at the Faris Gallery in Cincinnati, almost certainly during the studio's most active years between the mid-1840s and 1857. The portrait is a bust-length composition, frontal and unflinching, with a directness that reflects the deliberate, unhurried sittings characteristic of early daguerreian portraiture. Thomas Faris (1821–?) was among Cincinnati's most prominent daguerreotypists, operating continuously in that city from 1841 and maintaining galleries at the Melodeon Building at the northwest corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets through much of the 1850s.

The subject is an older man with thinning, curly hair swept back from a deeply lined forehead, heavy-set brows, and a steady, unsmiling gaze. He wears a dark frock coat over a white shirt with a wide spread collar, and a small dark bow tie is knotted at his throat. The gold-tone mat frames the image within rounded corners.

Faris built one of the most enduring daguerreian practices in the Ohio Valley, exhibiting work at the American Institute Fair in New York City in 1850 and later acquiring the gallery of Samuel Root at 363 Broadway before continuing to work as a photographer in New York through at least 1877.

The red velvet pad on the interior lid bears an embossed imprint reading "Faris Gallery" and "Cincinnati." The case is leather with embossed floral and foliate decoration on the front cover.

Property of a Palmer, Massachusetts gentleman.