Portret van Louis-Adolphe Thiers before 1879

Curator: This is a portrait of Louis-Adolphe Thiers, created by Bertall sometime before 1879. It now resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: The image is rather austere. There's this stately gentleman posed next to what I think is a classical table topped with a velvet cloth, but everything is muted, desaturated...a somber atmosphere for sure. Curator: Indeed. Thiers was a complex figure—a historian, prime minister, and eventually president of the French Third Republic. One could say Bertall's image captures some of that complexity through its formal composition and careful use of light. Editor: Oh, the light certainly isolates Thiers! This was not long after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, right? He crushed the Commune... such violence enacted on the working class. It makes you wonder about representation, about who gets memorialized. This portrait feels less like a celebration and more like an...assessment. Curator: An assessment…I like that. Bertall’s original was a photograph, which was then lithographed for wider distribution, so this image also engages with the growing power of mass media in shaping public perception. Editor: Absolutely, and it seems this piece comes from an actual book page, perhaps hinting at his legacy as a writer. You know, what I initially perceived as just faded tones now reads as this deliberate act to tone him down, even in the face of his power. Is that cynicism? I'm not sure. Curator: Perhaps it’s just Bertall's way of hinting that history will ultimately have its own way of evaluating its subjects. Editor: So the stillness betrays a quiet conflict...It gives me so much more to think about! Curator: Yes, the layers in this work spark consideration about the individual, political movements and how one era influences the other.