The photographic charts in this album illustrate the seemingly infinite variety of physical characteristics that make up an individual’s face, ranging from a general profile and the shape of the forehead and hairline to the size, contours, and details of the ears, nose, lips, and eyebrows. Alphonse Bertillon, director of the Paris Police Department, photographed and assembled these images to accompany a course he developed to train his agents to observe subjects more closely and describe them more accurately.