Photographic Portrait in the 19th Century – Uses and Functions in the Construction of Celebrities. The Case of Émile Zola

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to establish a relationship between the use of the portrait and the concept of celebrity, at the end of the 19th century, taking as a corpus of analysis a set of requests for photographs sent by letter to Zola, from correspondents located in different parts of the world. It is intended, through a qualitative analysis of this collection, to identify the functionalities and contexts within this set of correspondents requested these images, in order to understand the role that photography has taken in the symbolic construction process of this figure as a celebrity.