Carte-de-visite three quarter length photograph of Queen Maria Sophie of Bavaria. The subject is shown standing in three quarter view, facing towards the left of the image, with her head turned towards the viewer. Her dark hair is braided and arranged in a chignon and she is wearing a dark coloured silk dress, trimmed with black lace and silk ribbon. She is holding her hands crossed in front of her, and in her right hand she is holding a closed fan.

Maria was one of the ten children of Duke Maximilian Joseph and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria and she was the younger sister of the renowned Elisabeth of Bavaria ('Sisi'). In 1859 Maria married Francis II, King of Naples and the couple had an only daughter who died at the age of three months.