Etiévant. Henri, Achille. 32 ans, né à Flammanville (Manche). Typographe. Anarchiste. 4/3/94.
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
2005.100.375.160
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1894, French forensic pioneer Alphonse Bertillon this stark portrait of Henri Achilleévant, a 32-year-old typographer from Flammanville in Normandy, labeled simply as an "Anarch." Part of Bertillon's revolutionary anthropometric system—known as *bertillonage*—this small albumen silver print from glass negative (measuring just 10.5 x 7 cm) served as a police identification record. Created amid France's turbulent *Années Folles* precursor, when anarchist bombings rocked Paris, it documents a suspect in the era's wave of political unrest, blending criminal justice with emerging photographic pr...
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 ...