Photographs of studio backdrops used by professional portrait photographers. These backdrops are designed to be unobtrusive and yet give an air of painterly authority to photographic portraits. The title Cachet in English means stamp or authority and in French is used to describe the ambiance of a picture created by its setting. Here these aspects of portraiture have become the subject, giving us empty portraits. The often distressed surface of the backdrops competes with their vagueness and provides an index of their past use.