(Photos do no justice, this is all about presence, and all those layered bits of leather are much more beautiful in hand.) Anyway... I had to live with this special one for a while; I had a deep, very visceral response to it when first I saw it, and still do--as much a thing to feel as to look at it. (And smell that leather, too!) Our pink cheeked fellow is forever enclosed here (I want to say encrusted, too), with leather bits overlapping the cased portrait, and thick, faceted slab of wood closing him in from behind. The photograph is an ambrotype I believe, with details showing that the image at this point is really nothing more than a floating face and white collar, with only the black fabric behind it lending him the sense of a body, and one has the sense that he will gradually disappear into the ether entirely. In contract, the crusty leatherwork surrounding him is all about presence--emphatic objecthood, rich and craggy and to my eye just completely gorgeous. With scallop-edge bow at tip and leather heart at the bottom--the heart a bit dry and curled at the bottom, as one's love might be at 175 years or so, but still not going anywhere.

5 1/4" x 4" x 1 1/8" thick. Portrait sight (oval) 2 1/8" x 1 5/8". First image shows the aging to the leather looking a bit more orange in tone at the edges than in hand; I have photographed it in a few different light situations to try to give a good sense. Wear and aging to the leather as and aging to the photograph itself as evident, which I think all contributes to its feeling of specialness. Stable and not really fragile, I would just pay a bit of care to the bottom of the heart when handling; it is not about to tear, but obviously is worn and the leather dry. Old hanging loop screwed to the back.