This paper discusses, based on two different parameters, the material culture applied to the development of men's and women's public image: based on portraiture systems and based on urban spaces photographically registered. Backdrops, furniture (for interiors and exteriors) and, in particular, ornamental iron objects are seen as some of the supports that arrange bodily actions and the development of public and private spaces boundaries in the city of São Paulo during the XIX to XX centuries transition. We try to demonstrate the amount of every day practices developed out of a (in many cases aphasiac and gender differentiated) sense of decorum materialistically formed.
material culture; public space; photography; portraits; gender studies; ornamentation
