[Alphonse Bertillon Demonstrating Identity Portrait Technique in a Skylit Photography Studio]

Born into a distinguished family of scientists and statisticians, Bertillon began his career as a clerk in the Identification Bureau of the Paris Prefecture of Police in 1879. Tasked with maintaining reliable police records of offenders, he developed the first modern system of criminal identification. The system, which became known as Bertillonage, had three components: anthropometric measurement, precise verbal description of the prisoner’s physical characteristics, and standardized photographs of the face.
A prisoner being "Bertillonaged" was first subjected to eleven different anthropometric measurements taken with specially designed calipers, gauges, and rulers. To ensure that the results were accurate and consistent, Bertillon meticulously choreographed the movements and gestures of both prisoner and police clerk.
The third component of the Bertillonage process was the photographic identity portrait. The prisoner was photographed twice, once full face and once in profile, as in today’s standard mug shots. For Bertillon, the profile view was more useful for police work because the contour of the head remains consistent over time. He also devoted considerable attention to the morphology of the ear. Here, Bertillon demonstrates his apparatus and technique on a prisoner in a sky-lit photography studio. This image was featured in a display on Bertillonage at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.