Portret van een staande man met hoge hoed in de hand

This is a portrait of a man with a top hat, made by Henri Blanckart in the 19th century. It is a ‘carte de visite,’ a calling card photograph. The process used to make this picture - albumen printing - was at the cutting edge of technology at the time, a marvel of industrial chemistry. A thin coating of egg white, the albumen, gave a smooth surface on which the image was fixed. Think about the skill involved in sensitizing the paper, exposing it to light, and then developing the image. It was like having a miniature photographic laboratory. Photography democratized portraiture, making images available to a wider public, beyond the elite who could afford painting. These small cards allowed a degree of self-fashioning, as the sitter could select clothing and pose, signaling aspiration and status. So, next time you pick up your phone for a selfie, remember this early form of social media. It shows how photography changed not just art, but also society itself.