Seeing Double: A Girl Shown Twice in One Photograph, with a stocking and a shoe.”

E. W. Mudge (Elkhart, Indiana):

Double Portrait of a Girl with a Stocking

Cabinet card, circa 1895

Here’s a mystery: the girl in this double portrait holds a heavily-retouched stocking in one pose… and a shoe in the other. She’s also lifting her hem to show that she’s barefoot. Perhaps these two poses relate to a nursery rhyme.

The usual line where the two exposures meet does not seem noticeable in this photograph. The painted backdrop may help to conceal the seam, or it may divert the viewer’s attention in a classic magician’s technique known as “misdirection.”

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