Victor Hugo By Pierre Petit Business Card Circa 1861

Photographic portrait of Victor HUGO (1802-1885) circa 1861 by Pierre PETIT (1831-1909). Business Card format: 6.2x10.2cm Original photograph on albumen paper and mounted on cardboard. Very first photograph of a bearded Victor Hugo. It was in January 1861, following a violent sore throat, that the writer decided to grow a beard: "I let my beard grow to see if it would protect me against sore throats". In addition to the aesthetic aspect of this metamorphosis, it was a real snub to the imperial power which had decreed the banning of beards in the teaching profession. Pierre Lanith PETIT (1831 - 1909), learned the photographic technique with Eugène Disdéri, the inventor of the business card photo. He was nicknamed "Hairy Collodion". In 1859, he began an ambitious project of Galerie des hommes du jour, composed of portraits accompanied by biographical notices of personalities at the center of current events in entertainment, culture and political life.
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