Portret van een onbekende man before 1900

This is Nicola Perscheid’s portrait of an unknown man, made with a gelatin silver print around the turn of the century. Perscheid worked during a transformative period in photography, as it shifted from a craft to an art form. He specialized in portraits of the upper middle class. The man in this photograph is well-dressed, yet his identity is lost to us, illustrating the shifting nature of social identity in the modern era. The traditional portrait in painting aimed to capture the essence of the sitter. Here the photograph captures a moment in time. Consider Perscheid’s words: "Photography must be art; with the entire abundance of its possibilities". In this context, does Perscheid capture the man’s social standing and the cultural values of the time, or does he try to capture the essence of the man himself? What are your thoughts on the representation of identity in photography? What do you make of the fact that the sitter remains unknown?