Victor Hugo by Pierre Petit

Photographic portrait of Victor HUGO (1802-1885) by Pierre PETIT (1931-1909).

Business Card Size: 6.2 x 10.2 cm

Original photograph on albumen paper, mounted on cardboard.

The very first photograph of a bearded Victor Hugo.

It was in January 1861, following a severe sore throat, that the writer decided to grow a beard: "I am growing my beard to see if it will protect me against sore throats."

Besides the aesthetic aspect of this metamorphosis, it is a real snub to the imperial power which had decreed the prohibition of beards in the teaching profession.

Pierre Lanith PETIT (1831 - 1909) learned photographic techniques from Eugène Disdéri, the inventor of the carte-de-visite photograph. He was nicknamed "Collodion the Hairy".

In 1859, he began an ambitious project for a Gallery of Men of the Day, composed of portraits accompanied by biographical notes of personalities at the center of current events in entertainment, culture and political life.