Portret van een onbekende man 1889 - 1920

This portrait of an unknown man was captured by Nadar sometime in the 19th century, printed on a carte-de-visite. Looking at this now, it’s like a faded memory, this unknown man gazing into the past, staring into the lens of a camera that’s capturing him, but not quite holding him. He’s dressed up in his best suit with a waistcoat and puffy tie, looking serious, but who was he? I wonder, did he have any idea that his image would be here, like this, looked at by strangers so many years later? Nadar was a real master of light, wasn't he? He knew how to use it to reveal something about the sitter's character, or maybe it's just my imagination. He's been lost to time, yet the picture remains. It’s a conversation across time, a story without words.