Bidspirit auction | Mid-to-Late 19th-Century Leather Bound Portrait

Mid-to-Late 19th-Century Leather Bound Portrait Photograph Album with Ornate Brass Clasps - A Victorian-era portrait photograph album featuring a heavily embossed brown leather binding. The front and back covers are decorated with deep relief scrollwork and floral motifs. The spine is constructed with a central embossed cartouche containing the word Album in gilded gothic script. The fore-edge is secured by two ornate, pierced brass clasps. The text block consists of thick cardstock window-mount pages with heavily gilded edges. The album contains an assortment of mid-to-late 19th-century photographs in various formats. Visible contents include several tintypes (melainotypes) identified by their dark metallic surfaces, and multiple albumen prints on card mounts (cartes de visite). One portrait features a young boy in a pink shirt, showing evidence of contemporary hand-coloring. Internal markings include a pencil inscription on one page reading Deborah Bacon. One loose carte de visite mount bears a printed studio mark within a decorative border that reads N. JENKS, BOONVILLE, N. Y. and Negatives Preserved at the lower edge. The internal pages are decorated with a printed red linear border surrounding the photographic apertures. The leather binding shows significant wear consistent with age, including leather loss and exposed boards at the corners and spine ends (photos 1, 2, 3). The leather exhibits scuffing and areas of red rot deterioration (photo 4). Both brass clasps are present and appear functional (photo 4). Internally, the cardstock pages show light soiling and thumbing. Several pages have significant tears to the paper surrounding the photo slots, most notably at the bottom of the openings (photos 5, 6, 7). The photographs show varying degrees of preservation; some albumen prints exhibit silvering and fading at the perimeters (photos 12, 16), while some tintypes show minor surface abrasions (photo 13).