The Old Maid Having Her Picture Taken is a 1901 silent short film directed by Edwin S. Porter in collaboration with George S. Fleming.

The comic film depicts an unattractive old woman (played by celebrated vaudeville female impersonator Gilbert Saroni) arriving at a photo studio to have her picture taken, and destroying all of the equipment through the power of her ugliness.

According to Charles Musser in Before the Nickelodeon, "It was suggested that the old maid was busy talking about her adventures at the photo gallery.

As she gazes at the lens, the camera explodes in a shower of dust, comically startling the old maid.

That familiarity is precisely the mechanism by which we are able to identify the woman as a sexual — or, in this case, asexual — icon.