Portret van een onbekende man met snor 1887 - 1920

This portrait of an unknown man with a moustache was made by Henri Berssenbrugge, likely in the early 20th century, using photographic processes. The photograph itself, with its sepia tones and soft focus, speaks to a particular moment in the history of photographic technology, when capturing a likeness was a complex interplay of light, chemistry, and time. It is mounted on card and set in a wooden frame, materials that add to the feeling of a bygone era. The very act of creating a photographic portrait involved skilled labor, from setting up the shot to developing the image in a darkroom. Moreover, consider the social context of portraiture at the time. It would have been a privilege, a moment of self-fashioning made possible by advances in technology, but available only to the middle classes. By attending to the materials and processes of photography, we understand its cultural significance more fully.