I often use the word painterly to describe tintypes that have a poetic sort of spareness and tonal richness to them--I'm not totally sure how to articulate it, but it's a particular sort of beauty, and distinguishes them from the bulk of tintype portraits one finds. Anyway, whatever it is, this for me embodies it. The crisp rake of that cloth draped table edge, coming in from the right, and how it echoes the cross of his leg, and the way that old patterned carpet meets the plain but well scuffed wall, and the roundness of his tall hat as it balances the straight edges everywhere else--there is a richness and completeness to it as a whole image, well beyond capturing a likeness.  I think so anyway. And find it really beautiful. 

3 3/4" x 2 7/8". Good condition, trimmed corners at upper and lower left. Hand-colored pink cheeks.