Delesderrier. Louis. 34 ans, né le 2/3/60 à Paris Ille. Ciseleur. Anarchiste. 16/3/94. 1894

This mugshot, made in Paris in 1894 by Alphonse Bertillon, captures Louis Delesderrier on a photographic plate. Photography, then a relatively new technology, was quickly being put to use as a tool of the state. Here, it’s employed to catalog and control a population. Consider the sitter: a 34-year-old metal engraver, and also an anarchist. The inscription below the image tells us as much. His trade, requiring both skilled hands and specialized tools, is directly at odds with the modernizing forces of industrialization that were rapidly changing the social landscape of Europe at the time. The image is a material record of a specific moment in history, one that tells of how people were being processed and categorized by emerging technologies, and, moreover, a moment defined by tensions between labor, political ideology, and the forces of social control. Appreciating the layers of context embedded in this unassuming photograph allows us to see it as more than just a found object, but as a lens through which to view a complex intersection of craft, society, and power.