Portret van een man met baard en bril 1880 - 1908

Carl Wilhelm Bauer captured this portrait of a man with a beard and glasses using photography, a relatively new medium at the time. The man's gaze is averted, lost in thought, or perhaps simply avoiding the camera's flash. The photograph itself, in its small format, feels like a memento, a personal object capturing a specific moment in time. It's a study in the restrained dignity of bourgeois life. The man’s beard, his suit, his spectacles – all signifiers of middle-class respectability. We can consider how photography democratized portraiture, making it accessible to a wider range of people beyond the elite. This portrait, with its intimate scale, quietly speaks to the changing social landscape of the 19th century, and offers a glimpse into the life of an individual navigating a world in transition.