Portret van een zittende oude man 1861 - 1874

Albert Greiner made this portrait of a seated old man using photography in the 19th century. The piece raises the question of how photography can create meaning and represent its subjects. Portraits like this one were common in Europe at the time. Photography studios were cropping up everywhere, hoping to serve a burgeoning middle class with aspirations to gentry status. We can read this image for what it tells us about social class. The man’s formal attire signifies respectability, as does the ornate chair. Such an image would have been displayed in the home as a symbol of family pride. What we see and how we interpret it is contingent on the social and institutional context. Catalogues and archives can tell us more about how the subject saw himself, and what values he sought to project.