Portret van de architect Claes, ten voeten uit 1861

This portrait of the architect Claes was made by Joseph Dupont sometime in the 19th century, using the then-novel medium of photography. Considered in its own time as a groundbreaking process, photography's dependence on chemistry and mechanics made it a distinctly modern art form that had a huge social impact. This particular print would have been made by taking a glass plate negative, placing it on light sensitive paper, and exposing it to light to create the final image. The image is small, but its implications are large: it shows the rising status of architects like Claes, who were responsible for designing the built environment that increasingly defined life at that time. Dupont's choice of photography as a medium, rather than traditional methods like painting, speaks to the changing times, where industry, technology, and the photographic image began to shape society, labor, and ways of seeing.