Musical accompaniment: Can the Circle Be Unbroken by The Carter Family.

 

I came across this rather mysterious cyanotype photograph taken in 1890. Initially I thought she was a statue, then perhaps that she was a real girl, but I’m not positive.

The picture is untitled. It was taken by Thomas Smillie, who was born in Scotland. He moved to the United States with his parents when he was five years old and later worked for the Smithsonian.

The girl in the picture is beautiful. She’s holding something stretched between her hands and is casually peering down at it.

There’s nothing life-like about the girl’s face and she is resting against a column, which suggests a cemetery statue. Her hair is adorned with a wreath of flowers but that wouldn’t be out of place in 1890 at a summer event.

This is probably a statue but the hands look real to me . If she is a statue, she’s much better quality than you would expect to see at a cemetery.  The strong blue tint that is characteristic of cyanotype print makes it hard to be certain. Usually the metadata holds some clue but not this time.  Whether this was a real human, or a marble likeness of one, she’s a little unnerving.

It makes me wonder why this picture was taken.  It’s a mysterious image and the Smithsonian’s description was unusually generic.