This allegorical tableau vivant, or mise-en-scène was created by
Oscar Rejlander in 1857. It depicts a philosopher, or a sage, or
perhaps a father leading two young men towards manhood. One (to
the left) looks towards vice; gambling, wine and prostitution,
and the other, with perhaps less enthusiasm,1 looks towards
virtue; religion, industry and family. Penitence, in the center,
looks toward the right, rejecting vice. The image was the first
publicly exhibited photograph of a nude, the first major art
photograph and the first photo-montage. Oscar Gustav Rejlander
(1813–18 Jan 1875) was born and educated in Sweden. After
studying painting in Italy and Spain he settled in England in
1846. Initially his interest in photography was merely as a
means of recording works of art and, around 1850, he had what
could best be described as a crash course in the calotype
process from Nicholas Henneman in London and soon switched from
portrait painting to photography. His earliest experiments with
combination printing, arou