Cleveland Museum of Art

Fish Porters

Paul Géniaux

Date

late 1890s

Medium

albumen print

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Little is known about Géniaux, who was active from the 1890s through the 1920s as a commercial photographer. Clearly a practitioner with a trained eye, he created this engaging portrait of two fish porters dressed in traditional work clothes complete with leather arm guards and metal identification badges. He positioned the men with their fish containers in front of a mounted sign listing the parking fees for vehicles bringing in and removing goods for the Paris Central Market. Géniaux's examinations of the city’s laborers were soon expanded by Eugène Atget (1856–1927), who methodically photographed the city and its inhabitants.

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