Portret van een staande oude man 1854 - 1865

This portrait of a standing old man was produced as an albumen print by Maull & Polyblank. In fact, the sitter is a woman but what can this tell us about the social conditions of artistic production in the nineteenth century? Photography emerged as a powerful new medium in Europe at this time, one that altered portraiture forever. No longer was it necessary to commission a painter to capture one’s likeness. Photography democratized the creation and circulation of images. Yet, the subject is posed in a classical way, next to a pedestal like an antique sculpture. What are we to make of this? The details of the sitter's dress speak of a conservative, middle-class background and of domesticity. This is not the provocative new woman of the avant-garde. By consulting studio records and other archives, we can reconstruct the complex interplay between social class, gender and representation, deepening our understanding of photography's role in 19th-century culture.