Portret van een onbekende man met baard, aangeduid als de heer Verheij

Albert Greiner made this albumen print of an unknown, though possibly named, man in Amsterdam. As photography became more widespread, it also became more commercial. Studios emerged, like Greiner's, that produced portrait photography for a wider public. In this image we see a man of the middle class, respectably dressed, with the beard of a scholar. He is presented in a style that imitates painted portraits, but its cost was significantly less, so that more people could have their likeness captured. The photograph, then, becomes an artifact of social mobility, as the institutions of art both create and reflect shifts in social power. As historians, it is important to study the institutions of art if we want to understand art itself. Studying Greiner’s Amsterdam studio, and others like it, can help us understand this period better.