Portret van een onbekende man en vrouw c. 1861 - 1890

This portrait of an unknown man and woman was made by Albert Greiner, a photographer working in Amsterdam in the late 19th century. It is a carte-de-visite, a calling card sized photograph, made using the wet collodion process. This process involved coating a glass plate with light-sensitive chemicals, exposing it in a camera, and then developing it immediately. The resulting negative could then be used to make multiple prints on albumen paper, a paper coated with egg white to give it a glossy surface. The carte-de-visite became wildly popular in the 1860s as an affordable and portable way to record and share images. This portrait speaks to the rise of a new middle class, eager to participate in visual culture and express their identity through fashion and pose. The mass production of photography democratized the art of portraiture, challenging traditional notions of artistic value and the labor involved in image-making.