This stereograph shows President Abraham Lincoln seated in a chair beside a small table, holding a paper in one hand and folded spectacles in his other hand. Alexander Gardner originally made this photograph in Washington, D.C. on Sunday August 9, 1863. Gardner had just opened his new studio and President Lincoln agreed to be the first customer. The maker of this stereograph is unknown, but there is a two-cent tax stamp glued to the back, indicating it was made between 1864 and 1866.

Stereographs made with photographic paper were invented in 1849. This example shows two side-by-side albumen photographic prints mounted onto cream cardstock. A popular entertainment and educational medium during the 19th century and early 20th century, this pairing produced an illusion of three-dimensions when using a special viewer.