Portret van de schilder Henri Jacques Bource, ten voeten uit 1861

Joseph Dupont made this portrait of the painter Henri Jacques Bource using photography, a relatively new medium at the time. Photography democratized image-making, offering a mechanical means to capture likeness, which traditionally relied on the skills of a painter or sculptor. Consider the material impact of photography: the heavy camera equipment, the light-sensitive chemicals, the darkroom labor. These processes have imbued the artwork with social significance. Photography shifted artistic production from the individual to the collaborative, involving manufacturers, lab technicians, and the photographer, whose expertise lay in operating the technology. The subject of the portrait, Henri Jacques Bource, is holding a cigar, which became an affordable luxury item for the emerging middle classes due to industrial mass production. The photograph itself, as a reproducible image, reflects the rise of consumer culture and the changing landscape of art and labor. By examining the materials, making, and context of this photograph, we gain insight into the wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption.