Arresting large format albumen portrait photograph of an unidentified subject in a three-quarter turn towards the camera with the figure's face and figure reflected in a large mirror. Signed lower left in pencil by the photographer. Photograph in very fine condition, some light wear and small tears to edges of mount, else fine. Albumen photograph measures 5.75 x 8.5 inches (14.5 x 21.5 cm.), the full mount 10.3 x 13.75 inches (26 x 35 cm.).

A fine example from the important Victorian art photographer often referred to as "the father of art photography" and whose collaboration with Charles Darwin on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals has also assured him a position in the history of behavioral science and psychiatry.

 

Born in Sweden, Rejlander studied painting as a young man, and later moved to Rome where he made a living making copies of Renaissance paintings. It was perhaps as a result of his early experience as a painter that Rejlander realised how useful photography could be to artists. He himself claimed that this moment of revelation came in 1852 after he’d bought some photographic reproductions of classical sculptures and was captivated by how photography succeeded in capturing the complicated folds of drapery. The present photograph is a fine testament to that revelation.