Untitled (Portrait of a Standing Man)
1880
Medium
Tintype
Dimensions
8.8 × 6.3 cm (3 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.); Card: 11 × 8.5 cm (4 3/8 × 3 3/8 in.); Plate: 10.2 × 7.7 cm (4 × 3 in.)
Classification
portrait
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
250246
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of 19th-century photography with *Untitled (Portrait of a Man)*, a tintype created around 1880 by an maker. Measuring just 8.8 × 6.3 cm, this small-scale portrait captures a solitary figure standing confidently, rendered in the distinctive metallic sheen of a tintype—a direct positive image made on a thin sheet of iron coated with collodion and silver halides. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography Media department, it exemplifies the era's accessible portraiture. Tintypes, invented in the 1850s, revolutionized photography by offering quick, affordab...