[Young Woman with Beckers Tabletop Stereoscope]

Art Historical Context

This charming albumen silver print, created between 1864 and 1866 by the studio known as Porter Photograph Parlors, captures a young woman posed with a Beckers tabletop stereoscope—a popular optical device of the era that allowed viewers to experience three-dimensional images. Measuring just over three by two inches, the photograph exemplifies the intimate scale of cartes de visite and cabinet cards that made photography accessible to the middle class during the mid-nineteenth century. The crisp detail of the albumen print, produced from a glass negative, highlights the technical precision tha...