CYCLING.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Two photographs of a gentleman posed on a bicycle. Two portrait photographs featuring a man in contemporary dress posed with an early bicycle taken at the studio of Gaspare Giovannola. It was not until the early 1860s that two-wheeled, pedal-powered bicycles were ridden for the first time. Despite the discomfort they caused (lending them the nickname "bone-shakers"), they became immensely popular. "The 'velocipede mania' in the 1860s was followed in the 1890s by a so-called 'bicycle boom' or 'craze' in many parts of the western world - as both product and instrument of the 'ride to modernity'" (Oosterhuis). In Italy in 1890 a bicycle such as that featured here would have been considered a luxury, the cheapest costing around 150-250 Lire, making these photos a show of both the subject's modernity and wealth (Pivato).

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