Original Photograph / Albumen print / Carte-de-visite (CDV)

S.l., 1860. Good. Small photograph (89 x 58 mm), irregularly trimmed; mounted on card (99 x 61 mm), likewise irregularly trimmed. Identified on card verso and recto in two different hands; on verso "Taken at the time UTC written." Print thumb-soiled; on subject's face a small portion of print flaked with loss. If indeed the subject of the present portrait is Harriet Beecher Stowe, then she was certainly a young woman here. Her hair uncharacteristically tied at the back, and her countenance free from the sorrow and woe that seems to eminate from all other known photographs of the author. For comparison purposes, images of a young Harriet Beecher Stowe have been almost impossible to procure. Unlike the two individuals who have identified the subject of the present photograph as Harriet Beecher Stowe, we are reluctant to make this claim, and thus differ to specialists.