Portret van een jonge man in kostuum met degen, aangeduid als L.G. Castens

Antonius Joannes van der Stok produced this carte-de-visite photograph of a young man in costume with a sword sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Looking at the image, it seems like the sitter is partaking in a masquerade, play-acting some noble character from centuries before. These kinds of historical re-enactments became popular around the turn of the century, in part due to the rise of historical societies and amateur dramatics. But this image might also say something about the sitter's personal aspirations, or the ambitions of the photographer himself. Was he documenting a specific performance? Was this young man simply aspiring to the fashions of a bygone era? What can we learn from the Rijksmuseum’s photo archive about the other people that Van der Stok photographed? Such questions highlight the work of the cultural historian, piecing together the social contexts that give images their specific meanings.