This unusual cabinet card portrait features a pretty young woman and her pipe smoking dog. The young lady is flashing a terrific smile which is highly unusual during the cabinet card era. It is very understandable that she is smiling as she poses for this humorous photograph. It is my guess that the woman is a teenager. She is wearing a very busy dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Her canine friend is wearing a wide collar and seems to be begging for the girl’s attention. One wonders if this is a photograph of a professional dog trainer who performs in carnivals, or if this image is a reflection of a creative subject or photographer. The identity of the subject and the photographer are unknown. The dog appears to be a Boston Terrier.
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Looks like an actress, playing the part of a “country child or bumpkin”. She is too old to be wearing a dress in that style. That hat looks like a prop as well. The flowers painted on the ‘rock’ are interesting.
One sort of detects the earmarks of a ‘Bet you can’t tell how we did this’ picture”. (Yet, if so, the modest maker didn’t ID himself.) Challenging. The ‘entry’ of the pipe into the dog’s mouth is strange, under magnification. The heavy smoke is coming out of the bowl, not through the stem … and, I believe, too sharp for the photography of the day to freeze (unlike the girl’s terrific smile). A masterful montage? I don’t know. I salute the maker.