These two, what a pair. The look like fortune seekers out west during the gold rush era to me, brothers or best friends I'm not sure but clearly with great ease and affection between them, and one imagines they've shared, and will yet share, some great adventures between them. Wonderful faces (how very handsome especially the young man at left), wonderfully laid back postures, and I love the visual rhyme of their crossed legs. But what especially sold me on this one is the object held in the mouth of the young man at right--at first looking like a mirror, but I think likely his pocket watch, with chain hanging down just to the right of it. (And the other seems to hold his watch in his hand in another echo.) And so, in a way, the image feels all about time--marking a precise moment, and also time ticking away, perhaps the very cusp of passage from youthful optimism onto something else. Or, perhaps, this tintype marked the day these two struck gold! You know I love a photo that feels like a novel yet to be written.
3 1/4" x 1 15/16". Clipped corners as evident, a few surface scratches, and something written over their heads (looks like Balim? Or Babm?) which I think just adds to sense of story and aura.
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