Woman posing with a fake house
What it is:
Cabinet card measuring 4.25 x 6.5 inches.
What I know about it:
Photographer is Townsend of Covington, Ohio. [There are Covingtons in Ohio and Oklahoma, but “O.” is the old abbreviation for Ohio.] Otherwise undated and unidentified.
Comments:
I continue to be surprised and delighted by the creative design that went into many studio portraits back in the day. Here we have not only a backdrop, but one with enough dimension to allow her to stick her hand through the open “window”. Real plants manage to add depth to the painted ones, and the straw on the floor looks like an uncut lawn, rather than a studio floor strewn with hay. It can be amusing to look at photos in which the settings appear cobbled together without any artistic finesse, but it can also be refreshing to see photos in which the elements come together in a nicely unified whole, as I feel they do here.
Pics of Then 
Love the way her buttons echo the ornaments over the window!
A woman who knows how to accessorize!
I, too, am amazed by the backdrop. Wonderful!
Thanks, Katie! I thought you might be amused by this “architectural photography”. 🙂
Look at her gorgeous dress which was surely her best one. Sometimes, I wish stays and corsets were still au courant.
I’m sure you’re hardly alone in thinking that. Perhaps you could lead a fashion movement that sparks a revival? 😉
I think I’d like to try a corset, too, Elizabeth. Surely we could get that curvaceous look without the agony by using modern materials? Our forebears always looked so trim even larger ladies in their cossies.
I’ll leave the engineering of a corset revival to you. 🙂