Vuagniaux. Alfred. 41 ans, né à Vucheron (Suisse). Cordonnier. Anarchiste. 2/3/94.
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
2005.100.375.427
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1894, French forensic pioneer Alphonse Bertillon this stark portrait of Alfred Vuagn, a 41-year-old Swiss-born shoemaker labeled simply as an "Anarchiste." The, part of Bertillon's revolutionary anthropometric system, records Vuagniaux's mugshot on February 3rd amid France's turbulent fin-de-siècle era. Anarchist bombings and political unrest gripped Paris, making such identifications crucial for police archives. Bertillon's meticulous labeling—age, birthplace, profession—transformed criminal records from mere descriptions into visual dossiers. Printed as a small albumen silver print from ...
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 ...