‘The Five Stages of Inebriation’ As Captured in These Hilarious 19th-Century Portraits

Called “The Five Stages of Inebriation,” this collection of photographs hilariously depicts, well, just that. From sober but wide-eyed all the way to passed out on the street, this dapper 19th-century gentleman shows off just what type of effects various amounts of alcohol will have on you.

Captured by Charles Percy Pickering back in the 1860s, these are considered to be staged photographs showing off the various stages of drunkenness for use in educational resources directed towards temperance groups.

Fun Fact: A rather unique aspect of these prints is that they are albumen print photographs.

Invented by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard in 1850, this technique made use of albumen (literally egg whites) to bind the photosensitive chemicals to the paper where they could then be exposed and developed. Considered the first commercially successful method of producing a print from a negative, this particular print style was prevalent from the time of its invention through the beginning of the 1900s.

(via Huffington Post)

Image credits: Photographs by Charles Percy Pickering courtesy of State Library of NSW