Half-length seated studio portrait albumen CDV. San Francisco, CA: Bradley & Rulofson, Photographers, Corner of Montgomery & Sacramento Streets, [circa 1864-1866]. Photographer's imprint and canceled two-cent US Internal Revenue stamp to mount verso.

This highly atmospheric seated portrait captures an unidentified Union officer with an intense gaze and a prominent, full beard. He wears a single-breasted officer's frock coat with shoulder straps and a forage cap featuring an embroidered wreath insignia. Most notably, the officer is enveloped in a massive, luxurious fur coat or buffalo robe, resting a leather-bound book or portfolio on his lap. He cradles the bowl of a pipe in his opposite hand. The reverse of the mount bears the elaborate backmark of Bradley & Rulofson, the premier photographic studio in San Francisco at the time. 

While the officer remains unidentified, Union portraits featuring California backmarks represent a fascinating and often overlooked chapter of the Civil War. Officers assigned to the Department of the Pacific were tasked with securing the vast western territories, protecting the overland mail routes from Native American raids, and guarding against Confederate incursions or partisan uprisings in California. The officer's heavy fur robe suggests he may have been garrisoned at one of the harsher, more remote frontier outposts in the Pacific Northwest or the Nevada Territory before visiting the bustling coastal city of San Francisco to have his portrait taken.

Rick understood that even without a firm identification, an image must possess immense character to warrant inclusion in his archive. A rugged, bearded Union officer swathed in an enormous fur robe, captured by a celebrated West Coast photography studio during the height of the war, is exactly the kind of interesting, museum-quality material that defined the Carlile collection.

[Photography, Early Photography, Historic Photography, Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes, Tintypes, Cased Images, Union Cases, Albumen Photographs, CDVs, Carte de Visites, Cartes de Visite, Carte-de-visite, Cartes-de-visite, CDV, Cabinet Cards, Stereoviews, Stereocards, Stereographs] [Civil War, Union, Confederate]

The image is in very good condition. The albumen surface exhibits a warm, pleasing tonality with excellent contrast. There is minor surface wear and light age-related fading typical of period photography.