Charrié. Cyprien. 26 ans, né le 7/10/67 à Paris XVIlle. Imprimeur. Anarchiste 2/7/94.
Medium
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Dimensions
10.5 x 7 x 0.5 cm (4 1/8 x 2 3/4 x 3/16 in.) each
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.375.99
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the turbulent Paris of 1894, amid a wave of anarchist bombings and political unrest, Alphonse Bertillon captured this stark portrait of Cyprien Charé, a 26-year-old printer labeled an "anarchiste" after his arrest on July 2. Born in Paris's 18th arrondissement, Charri exemplifies the working-class radicals who challenged the Third Republic's authority. Bertillon, the pioneering forensic photographer for the Paris Prefecture of Police, documented him using his revolutionary "Bertillon" system—a precise anthropometric method combining measurements, profile and frontal views, and meticulous no...
About the Artist
Alphonse Bertillon · 1853–1914
Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914) was a pioneering French photographer whose work revolutionized forensic documentation, transforming police identification into a precise visual science. Born in Paris on April 22, 1853, he was the son of medical professor and statistician Louis-Adolphe Bertillon and the younger brother of demographer Jacques Bertillon. Lacking formal higher education after expulsion ...