Portret van een onbekende man 1856 - 1876

This is a photograph of an unknown man, made by Ch. Verbeke-Schodts from Louvain, sometime in the mid-19th century. The key thing here is that this is a photographic print, likely an albumen print. In this process, paper was coated with egg white and silver nitrate, then exposed to light through a negative. The resulting image is notable for its fine detail and sepia tone, which you can clearly see here. What's easily overlooked, though, is the amount of labor involved in its production. Gathering eggs, preparing the emulsion, carefully controlling the exposure and developing the print: all of this required skill and time. This particular photo, because of its small size, was probably intended as a carte-de-visite, a calling card. Its very existence speaks to the rise of photography as a form of commercial production, and of a middle class that desired to have their likeness captured. Considering the material and the making of this photograph allows us to appreciate it not just as an image, but as a material artifact embedded in a specific social and economic context.