An elderly man fills the frame, head and shoulders, in a hat with a curved brim and wire-framed spectacles, with a moustache above a dark coat. The spectacles sit low on the nose, and both eyes look over the top of the lenses; one lens carries a bright reflection, the strongest highlight in the print. The brim crosses the upper frame and holds the forehead in shadow. The rendering is soft throughout, and detail gathers in the moustache. Contrast is high, with a pale ground at left and dark tone across the top.

The sitter is Martinsen, the photographer’s father-in-law. He came from a farm in Billingstadmarka and ran the coaching station at Nesbru, the first house in the area, on Kongeveien — the main road that from the seventeenth century linked Christiania, now Oslo, with Bragernes, now Drammen. Working as smith and shoemaker as well as host to travellers, he held a working part in the traffic along that road.

Technical Details: Likely a gelatin silver print with soft pictorialist rendering, on cream mount card. Signed «Christoffersen» with the date 28 at lower right; the verso carries the inked title, a London Salon of Photography label dated 1930, and the Oslo Kamera Klubb 1946 cavalcade label.

This work is currently not for sale