Portret van een man met baard 1878 - 1886

Editor: This is “Portret van een man met baard” - or "Portrait of a Man with Beard" - made between 1878 and 1886 by Louis Robert Werner. It’s a gelatin silver print. What I find interesting is the formal setting clashing with the obviously aged condition of the sitter; the trappings of wealth versus visible hard life. What can you tell me about it? Curator: I'm immediately drawn to the material reality of this photograph. Gelatin silver prints allowed for mass production of images in this period. Consider Werner's studio in Amsterdam as a site of labor. How many portraits like this were produced, sold, and consumed by the burgeoning middle class seeking to immortalize themselves? Editor: That’s an interesting angle. So you are less concerned with the individual and more about the photograph as a product of its time? Curator: Precisely. This image serves as a fascinating artifact, reflecting the material conditions of photographic production, labor, and distribution networks of late 19th-century Amsterdam. Note the framing itself, part of a mass-produced photographic album, a decorative consumption object. Editor: The mass production of images allowed the rising middle class to consume and emulate the styles of the elite. It wasn’t just portraiture, but the accessibility of aesthetics... almost a proto-influencer culture, maybe? Curator: Good point! How does this compare to image production and consumption today? Think about our own endless scroll through Instagram! The materiality may have shifted to digital, but the social impulse to produce and consume portraits is remarkably similar. What are the new sites of labor and material production in our era? Editor: Food for thought! Thanks; now I'm thinking about server farms as factories... Curator: Exactly! Looking at this image with that question makes history come alive, don't you think?