Somebody's grandmother, by Fred Smith of Chesterfield

This carte de visite portrait of an unidentified elderly woman (with a look that you want to hide from) was taken by Fred Smith in his studio on the corner of Brewery Street and Tapton Lane, Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Smith was operating from those premises from c.1869 till c.1879, and judging from the square corners and design on the reverse of the mount, the studio setting and style of portrait, I estimate a date of no later than 1873.



Fred was actually Alfred Edward Smith, born in Coventry in 1846, who moved to Chesterfield in the 1860s, and married Scottish schoolteacher Martha Hughes in 1872. By 1881 they had left Derbyshire and were in Holdenhurst near Bournemouth (Hampshire).

It is possible that his studio was then taken over by the celebrated Chesterfield photographer Alfred Seaman, who operated from premises at that ocation from the late 1870s.


Post Script
I was indeed being a little unkind, but then I'm allowed to be a little provocative, occasionally, if it gets people commenting? An enlargement shows quite different left and right sides to her face. If you cover the right hand side, the baleful stare has almost disappeared and she looks substantially younger. I wonder if she'd had a stroke?