The documentation that I've come across indicates that these two people are
William Thornton Snyder (1800-1872) and
his wife Sarah S. Jenkins Snyder (1797-1859),
parents of Ann Lucretia Snyder (born in Virginia, lived 1822-1890).
Ann Lucretia Snyder married Charles Oliver Alden (born in Vermont, lived 1813-1876) in 1839.
Ann and Charles Alden were the parents of
Elihu Alden (born near Petersburg, Kentucky, lived 1851-1935), who named one of his daughters Lucretia.
This is a copy of a
tintype, or ferrotype, a "photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal, colloquially called 'tin' (though not actually tin-coated), coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion" (per Wikipedia). The original is an 8x10 inch sheet of metal which was framed behind glass. When I removed it from the oval frame, some of the emulsion stuck to the glass, notably around William Snyder's left chin. In an attempt to repair the damage, I have cloned in the area around William's left chin. I also cloned in part of Sarah's right arm near the edge of the image, and I removed a small spot on William's forehead. You can see a faint outline of the oval frame on the tintype.
The tintype (not to be confused with the more well-known
daguerreotype) was introduced in 1853 and Sarah Jenkins Snyder died in 1859, so if this really is Sarah (I'm not totally certain), this image must have been created sometime between those years. It probably was taken somewhere in Virginia, possibly near the town of
Orange, though I think they would need to go to a larger town to find a photographer able to create this.
A photo from that time would have required a long exposure time, which can make eyes look odd because people blink during the exposure. It appears that the eyes in this tintype were retouched to make them look more realistic, though William's left pupil resembles that of a cat.
This photo is in the public domain because it was created more than 95 years ago.
