Fish Porters
late 1890s
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
matted: 45.7 × 35.6 cm · paper: 17.6 × 12.8 cm
Classification
Photograph
Department
Photography
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1999.108
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
Little is known about Géniaux, who was active from the 1890s through the 1920s as a commercial photographer. Clearly a practitioner with a trained eye, he created this engaging portrait of two fish porters dressed in traditional work clothes complete with leather arm guards and metal identification badges. He positioned the men with their fish containers in front of a mounted sign listing the tariffs on goods sold in the Paris Central Market. Géniaux's examinations of the city's laborers were so...