Portret van een zittende vrouw met muts 1861 - 1874

Albert Greiner produced this small photograph, *Portret van een zittende vrouw met muts,* using albumen silver print on cardboard. The albumen print was a popular process in the 19th century that involved coating paper with egg whites, then sensitizing it with silver nitrate. This laborious technique yielded images with fine detail and a glossy surface, as you can see here. Photography like this was still a relatively new medium. Greiner's choice of material and process speaks to the burgeoning culture of portraiture in the industrial age. The rise of photography democratized image-making, allowing a wider segment of society to commission likenesses, and the mass production of photographic materials made it more accessible. The amount of work that went into preparing the materials and taking photographs would have been quite intense. Consider the way that this artwork reflects the changing landscape of art and labor in the 1800s, and that the images have a lot to tell us about the democratization of art.