[Member of the Paris Commune: Marie Grivot, orateur de club, perpétuité] 1871

Curator: This is a portrait of Marie Grivot, a figure from the Paris Commune, captured in 1871 by Ernest Eugène Appert. It's a gelatin silver print, part of a series Appert made documenting Communards. What strikes you about it? Editor: Immediately, a deep pensiveness. She’s leaning back, lost in thought… or maybe burdened by it. The slightly faded sepia tones enhance that sense of looking into a bygone era of intense upheaval. Curator: The photographic portraits of the Communards by Appert were politically charged documents. After the fall of the Commune, these photographs were used for identification and repression. Photography served here as a tool of political control. Editor: It’s unsettling, isn’t it? The very act of preserving someone's image—capturing a moment—became a means of control. This knowledge shapes my understanding—I can’t separate the sensitivity of the portrait from its future application for her possible punishment. Curator: Exactly. While Appert adopted the visual language of portraiture, this was far from a neutral representation. The staging feels somewhat artificial. We know that she had already been captured and imprisoned at this point, making it hard to trust. Editor: I almost feel complicit in staring, knowing its role as evidence. Do you ever feel that way? Still, there’s an undeniable sense of humanity in her gaze. Is it defiance? Resilience? Curator: It’s layered, certainly. It represents a moment of radical social change but, ultimately, was used to erase any record that a woman leader like her existed in the public imagination of the day. Editor: Erased and remembered, all at once. A stark reminder that even the simplest image can carry an entire history within it. Curator: Indeed. And in revisiting these images today, we hopefully reinsert people like Marie Grivot back into our understanding of the Commune.