Seated woman with a book
Click here to view it larger.
This little carte de visite comes with no information, but it seems worth sharing. I think it’s elegant in its simplicity. As always, I wonder what the book is. (A studio prop? Something actually meaningful to the woman?) At first glance, the face under her arm looked like something decorating her dress or even the table. But once I enlarged it, I realized it’s part of the backdrop, and that we see it because she’s so tightly corseted.
Pics of Then 
I didn’t notice the face until you mentioned it. Do you think that was an accident, or did the photographer pose her that way on purpose, to create a sort of comic element? My first thought was that it was accidental, but on the other hand, the photographer certainly knew the face was there.
Hmm, hard to say. I’m leaning toward accidental, but maybe the photographer had a quietly sly sense of humor.
I don’t remember seeing books in many old photos, so I’m guessing it was meaningful to her. (But who knows!)
Slightly amusing (to me): one of the ads on the page is for Barbie, who is considered beautiful, while I think the woman in this photo would have been called “plain”.
Ha! I don’t pick the ads that run with my posts, of course. I wonder what, if any, algorithm does the matching.