A young woman in a dark dress with a wide lace collar is the subject of this quarter plate daguerreotype attributed to Preston M. Cary, presented in its leather case with an impressed velvet pad. No photographer's imprint is visible on the plate itself. The attribution derives from an impressed maker's mark on the case pad rather than any signature on the image.

She wears her hair parted center and drawn into smooth loops over each ear, with drop earrings and a small brooch or pin fastened at the throat within the collar's points. Her dark dress is cut simply beneath the elaborate scalloped lace collar, and she is posed close to the camera in a three quarter view, her gaze directed just past the lens.

Cary operated briefly in Savannah, Georgia, between February and June of 1850, then in New York City at 187 Broadway from July 1850 until January 1851. He was subsequently listed as a daguerreian in both Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah in 1851, working in the latter city in partnership with J.W. Perkins at the corner of Bryan Street and Market Square.

The velvet case pad carries an impressed identification of the maker as Cary, and the case is bound in a smooth grained leather with a diamond patterned border along its edges.

Property of a Palmer, Massachusetts gentleman.