This is Arthur McClain’s baby picture. As you can see, it has had a bit of a rough life (the photo, not Baby Arthur).

Grandpa Arthur was born October 6, 1884. This photo must have been taken very late in 1884 or early in 1885.

The photographer’s name is printed on the back of the mounting card in a very elaborate fashion:

It is significant that the photographer was in North Platte, Nebraska. (At least it is if you’re obsessed with chronology as I am.) Nathan and Mary McClain were married in Adams County, in far western Illinois. (Mary had been born there. Nathan was born in neighboring Pike County.) Their first children were born in Adams County. Around 1880 they moved to Cass County, in far eastern Nebraska. Basically they moved across the state of Iowa. Then sometime between 1884 when Arthur was born and 1886 when Frank was born, they moved to Paxton, toward the western side of Nebraska. North Platte is 30 miles from Paxton. So they evidently moved to Paxton shortly after Arthur was born—before this photo was taken.

As you can see, along with the photographer’s name there is the message, “Duplicates of this picture can be had at any time.” As nearly as I can tell, this claim is false. I asked for a duplicate and haven’t gotten it yet. ;–)

If you tap/click on Baby Arthur’s image above and zoom in on the eyes in the enlarged version, you will see that this photographer also employed the trick of darkening the limbal rings of Arthur’s eyes. In this case you can clearly see the pin pricks made in the negative to do this. Dan observed that Uncle Barney’s mouth had been darkened in the photo posted when this was first discussed. That appears to have been done in this photo also. I don’t know what Victorians had against seeing a baby’s tongue or gums.