oa Attributes of a Model in 19th Century Portrait Photography: Typical and Individual

The article analyzes the attributes of models which can be observed in the portrait photography of the second half of the 19th century. With the help of the items in the shot, the photographers created typical images of honourable members of European society. The photographs captured new archetypes of the urban community with modern attributes of a profession or leisure. Items of European and colonial everyday life reflected the interaction between the metropolis and the territories under its control. But the objects in the photograph also conveyed the individual features of a model's personality, which was important for its functioning as an instrument of memory.