Portret van een jongeman met snor 1878 - 1900

Curator: The portrait you're viewing, taken sometime between 1878 and 1900, is simply called "Portret van een jongeman met snor"—"Portrait of a Young Man with a Mustache." It is a photographic print, author unknown, mounted in a period album. Editor: He has such gentle eyes. The sepia tone lends it a romantic feel, doesn't it? It's like peering into a distant, almost idealized past. Curator: These types of portraits were incredibly popular in that era. Think of them as the "selfies" of the late 19th century. They offer insight into the prevailing beauty standards and social aspirations of the time. The mustache itself—a signifier of masculinity and sophistication. Editor: Absolutely. A distinct symbol, then and maybe still today, of a certain bourgeois aspiration to respectability. He is very much the respectable young man of his day. Though, let's not forget how photography, even in portraiture, opened up possibilities of self-representation to new segments of the population who might otherwise never have had their image rendered. Curator: Very true. Before photography, painted portraits were a luxury for the elite. Photography democratized representation, to some extent, allowing ordinary individuals to document themselves for posterity. Look at the clothing and the somewhat careful, proper pose, how this sitter carefully displays the cultural ideal of that era through fashion and deportment. Editor: It makes me wonder, though, what this young man truly thought and felt beyond the social expectations of the time. We only see a fragment, a constructed image. Where are his politics? Did he champion the suffragettes, maybe, or participate in an underground resistance movement? Curator: It’s hard to know! He might represent a larger cultural continuity of youthful, hopeful subjects. While it may represent constructed archetypes, he can stand for the hopes and anxieties of that period on a much grander scale. Editor: So much of the emotionality is hidden. Photography has always negotiated the paradoxes of revealing and concealing the self. Well, either way, it's a face worth remembering, I suppose. Curator: I agree; perhaps now, in the remembering, we begin to allow space for the man as much as the symbol to re-emerge.