I've really fallen in love with antique hand-painted full plate tintype portraits, and this one--a bit bolder and more striking in person--has a wonderful intensity and surrealness about it, with the matte gray painting around this young woman amplifying the elongated shape of her head and hair, making her look almost as if in the process of transforming into a different sort of creature (I keep thinking of a gazelle!) With wonderfully delicate dots of white to define and highlight the top edge of the lace around her neck, and one tiny white button of a flower at the center of her blue bow. Moody and striking and lovely.

 8 1/4" x 6 3/8" and in good condition. Folds to the far corners and a bit of bending to the top left, though that is much more pronounced in photos; the tintype lies flat.