Strange Inner Glow: Evocatively Degraded Ninth Plate Ruby Ambrotype of Baby miniature shoe with laces red lined cape

red lined cape

There are at least four different colors of stain on the various wooden pieces

and pretty great wonkily painted face

with a small chip to the upper right corner of the frame

and wear around the edges as pictured

Strange Inner Glow: Evocatively Degraded Ninth Plate Ruby Ambrotype of Baby miniature shoe with laces red lined capeSuch a strange one! This is an foil wrapped, uncased 19th c. ruby ambrotype which, over time, has been transformed in what I find a quite evocative and rather otherworldly way, as if revealing this child's inner light (or its being consumed from within by a pear shaped ectoplasmic blob!) I especially love how the hand at left seems to grip and press into the side of the glowing form. There is no backing aside from a taped perimeter and the foil wrap,