Antique 1880s Mitchell Creese Tintype Group Portrait of Four Kansas Frontier Men

Tintype, approximately 3.375 × 2 in. In original period paper folder with decorative gilt oval border, approximately 3.875 × 2.5 in.

An intimate and finely composed group portrait of four men - two seated in front, two standing behind - set against a classical painted backdrop. The central seated figure holds crutches and has removed his hat; two of the men smoke cigars; the standing figures rest their hands on the shoulders of the man with crutches in an unusually tender gesture suggesting close bonds of family or friendship. Photographed on the Kansas frontier by Mitchell P. Burr Oak was barely a decade old at the time of this sitting - frontier country on the high plains. Creese later expanded to Mankato, Kansas, maintaining his Burr Oak gallery one day a week until at least 1900.

The folder back bears his printed studio imprint: M. Along with a penciled name and notation. A rare, fully attributed example of wet plate-era frontier photography. Surface wear commensurate with age; clipped upper corners, bend at upper third, minor edge losses.