Portret van een man met snor 1860 - 1900

Heinrich Gerdom made this photograph, "Portret van een man met snor," using an albumen print, a popular method in the 19th century that gave images a distinctive sepia tone. The portrait, with its formal composition, captures the subject in a manner typical of bourgeois portraiture from that era. The man's attire – a well-tailored suit, a crisp shirt, and a neatly styled moustache – speaks volumes about his social standing and adherence to prevailing norms of masculine respectability. The photographic framing, with its decorative flourishes, further enhances the sense of formality and curated presentation that was expected of a portrait. The rise of photography studios and their conventions offer a fascinating insight into the democratisation of portraiture, as new technologies enabled a broader segment of the population to participate in visual representation. To fully understand this image, historians might delve into archives of photographic studios, manuals of etiquette, and demographic studies of the period, each providing a glimpse into the intricate web of social and institutional contexts that shaped artistic production.