This is a tintype portrait of Mrs. Horace Bemis, made about 1860. She is possibly Mary E. Bemis of West Gardiner, married to Horace Bemis, a farmer. In 1860, the couple had three children, Helen, Horace, and Lucius.

Tintypes, in which the image is made on sheets of thin, blackened iron, were a cheaper alternative to daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. They enjoyed a brief period of popularity around the Civil War.