Portret van een onbekende man aan een tafel 1874 - 1887

This mounted albumen print of an unknown man at a table was created by Albert Greiner in Amsterdam. During the 19th century, photography transitioned from a scientific novelty to a means of mass communication and personal expression. In this portrait, the subject's attire and posture suggest a middle-class status, reflective of the changing social landscape in the Netherlands. The rise of a wealthy merchant class transformed Dutch society, and portraiture became a means for individuals to assert their identity and place within it. Greiner's work, and others like it, reveal the democratizing influence of photography. It became a way for a wider range of social classes to participate in the world of visual representation. To understand this piece more fully, we can examine studio records, social histories of the Netherlands, and photographic journals of the period. These sources shed light on the cultural values and institutional structures that shaped the production and consumption of photographic portraiture.