Fish Porters (late 1890s): Art, History and Details

Fish Porters (late 1890s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Paul Géniaux (French, 1873–1929).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Fish Porters
• Date: late 1890s
• Creator attribution: Paul Géniaux (French, 1873–1929)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print
• Dimensions: Paper: 17.6 x 12.8 cm (6 15/16 x 5 1/16 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
• Collection: Photography
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1999.108

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.