Portret van een man 1881 - 1891

This is Eugène Maurice’s ‘Portret van een man’, a late nineteenth-century portrait, crafted through the lens of early photography. Consider how photography democratized portraiture, extending it beyond the elite. Here, the sitter's formal attire—the dark suit and bow tie—speaks to aspirations of middle-class respectability. Yet, the photographic process itself, with its long exposure times, often resulted in a certain stiffness, a mask-like quality. This raises questions about representation, about how identity is constructed and performed, both by the sitter and by the photographer. We might also reflect on the absence of context. Who was this man? What was his story? Photography promises a kind of truth, a capturing of reality, but what truths are revealed, and what remain hidden? Perhaps it reminds us that every image, every portrait, is a negotiation between visibility and invisibility, a dance between revelation and concealment.