Male portrait. Córdoba, Argentina. Circa 1894.

Vintage photographic albumen print, toned in dark sepia and in the universal measurement of 21 x 16.2 cm / 8.26 x 6.37 in; It is mounted on a thick secondary support of dark cardboard (25.3 x 17.1 cm / 9.96 x 6.73 in) with its golden edges and at the foot, the advertising in gold tone indicating: "Tey & Palà - Photographers"; At the center of that signature and between laurels there are three shields: on the left the Spanish from the kingdom of León and Castilla, on the center the Argentine, and on the left, the one from the Argentine province of Córdoba.

We are in front of an excellent posed studio portrait. That elegant middle-aged gentleman with thick English-type mustaches has decided to perpetuate his figure by going to the accredited studio of Tey & Palà photographers in the city of Córdoba. For this special occasion, he wears his best suit -in his upper pocket he wears the classic handkerchief- with a light waistcoat, a white shirt with a "bow tie" collar and an elegant plaid bow tie.

He faces the large gallery chamber seated on an open-backed thonet chair and in a relaxed three-quarter profile pose, his figure stands out against a plain, neutral background in a gray tone. The lighting that shapes his face is excellent and comes from a source located to the right of the glazed pose gallery. This client has opted for the largest and most expensive of the universal formats, namely the "Imperial", an ideal measure for showing off large-size individual portraits.

The photographers Félix Tey and Juan Palà, founders of the prestigious "Catalan Photography" in the city of Córdoba, immediately won the favor of the public for the superior quality of their work. In addition to their work as portraitists, they stood out for exploiting the surprising stereoscopic photography - they could be appreciated in three dimensions thanks to special optical viewers - taking with their special cameras a whole series of views and events not only in this Mediterranean province, but also in other points of the country, coming to conform, according to what the researcher Cristina Boixados informs us, "an immense collection", which included the catastrophic flood of Córdoba that occurred in December 1890.