Portret van een onbekende man before 1903

Editor: Here we have "Portret van een onbekende man," which translates to "Portrait of an Unknown Man," dating to before 1903. The medium is listed as both print and photography. The man is sharply dressed with a meticulously groomed mustache and is holding what appears to be a cigarette. What first stands out to you about this piece? Curator: The photograph itself, as an artifact within the print, presents a fascinating layering of symbolic weight. This "unknown man" – his anonymity is itself a symbol. Who was considered worthy of being remembered and reproduced within the canon of printed material? The gaze he directs, with the cigarette almost an extension of that directed energy, begs questions about modern identity. Editor: Modern identity? Could you elaborate? Curator: Yes, think of it. Early photography's function, in part, was to capture likeness, to preserve a memory against time. His posture, dress, and yes, even the cigarette speak of a striving for a specific image of modern manhood—one of perhaps industry, burgeoning confidence. The 'unknown' aspect emphasizes, perversely, a generalized ideal more than a specific individual, which also fits the turn to modernism and its tendency for types. The cigarette, that little ephemeral fire stick, signals his conscious performance of identity. What is he projecting? And, for whom? Editor: It’s interesting how a portrait of an anonymous man could suggest so much about turn-of-the-century ideals and the performance of identity. Curator: Precisely! We read our own cultural assumptions into this cipher and see how much still resonates – or doesn’t. The beauty and the mystery of it.