Willems. Charles, Louis. 52 ans, né à Houndchocte (Nord). Tailleur d'habits. Anarchiste. 18/3/94. 1894

Curator: The gelatin silver print before us is titled "Willems. Charles, Louis. 52 ans, né à Houndchocte (Nord). Tailleur d'habits. Anarchiste. 18/3/94.," created by Alphonse Bertillon in 1894. It is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Immediately, there is a rather severe tonality that pervades this photograph. The restrained sepia tones emphasize an inherent somberness in the sitter’s expression, from the lines in his forehead to his pursed lips. The composition is similarly uncomplicated. Curator: Indeed. Bertillon's practice centered around criminal identification. His system, Bertillonage, involved precise body measurements to categorize individuals. These portraits served a very specific, very utilitarian, function within the justice system. This photograph documents an anarchist in 1894, after all, in a tense social and political moment. Editor: Consider the gaze, though. It’s not a confrontational stare, but rather, averted slightly as if directed toward an intangible future. This elevates it beyond a mere record into the territory of complex interiority. Semiotically, the gaze represents the relationship between subject and environment and therefore carries rich possibilities here. Curator: Precisely. What this challenges is our very reading of realism itself. Bertillon believed he was recording an objective likeness, a factual account. Yet, the nuances we pick up through your semiotic lens demonstrate that photography is always filtered through a viewpoint, shaped by context and expectation. Editor: Further, note the tonal range—carefully considered to build form in face, costume and the way that it throws our attention around the photographic plane, finally lingering on that penetrating gaze. Curator: Ultimately, Bertillon's creation functions both as a stark historical record, a product of anxieties around anarchism at the end of the 19th century, and as a poignant, if inadvertent, meditation on identity and representation. Editor: Yes. A work defined both by cold structure and its own capacity for unexpected expression.