Berlin Coal Carrier

[1] The photograph depicts a coal carrier from Berlin, emerging from the dark cellar of a building into the sunlight.

The man of middle age and with a moustache, is of humble social condition, he wears a hat and is dressed poorly, with dirty and worn pants.

He takes a step upward the door, while he carries on his left shoulder a wicker basket, presumably with coal.

His appearance and profession put him at the lower ranks of the working class of the Weimar Republic.

The J. Paul Getty Museum website states: "His place, Sander seems to suggest, is deep inside the bowels of German society — like the dark basement from which he emerges.

Berlin Coal Carrier (1929) by August Sander