Louis Igout was a 19th Century French photographer whose photographic studies for artists
have been frequently featured here on the blog. His work is often confused with that of
Hermann Heid, an Austrian photographer who worked in Paris at the same time and whose
work was published in an album of studies without attribution for any of the photographers.
This stocky, curly haired guy is by far my favorite Igout/Heid model.
You get a sense of his looking for a wall to lean on. His paleness is striking.
ReplyDeleteHairstyles and hair length are a very good way approximately to date a photograph. Men's hairstyles started to shorten in the last decade of the 19th century. My paternal grandmother was a bit of a hang 'em and flog 'em merchant, and I will never forget when it was announced on the evening news that Ted Heath (1970-74 Conservative) was the first prime minister to wear his hair over his ears since Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1895-1902 Conservative). My grandmother started sounding off, saying that it ought to be cut off... so I fished out of photograph of her father - much of the generation of men in this series - looking like one of the Beetles, and that was the end of that!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the story! What you say about hairstyles changing around 1890 is true. While your method is far more entertaining, another way to date Igout's work is simply the fact that he died in the early 1880's.
DeleteWonderful image. I can almost smell his arm pit.
ReplyDeleteProbably quite easy in those days.
DeleteThe Prussians brought on the sort hair business as they wanted the fewest number of helmet sizes for the troops -- short hair everyone.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. It makes sense.
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