Portret van een vrouw met vier dochters 1863

This photographic print depicting a woman with her four daughters was created by Elliott & Fry, a London photographic firm active from 1863 to 1919. As studio photographers, Elliott & Fry catered to the Victorian desire to record likenesses and familial bonds for posterity. The image constructs meaning through the formal arrangement of figures. The mother, seated and formally dressed, anchors the composition. Her daughters are carefully positioned around her, suggesting both intimacy and social order. The setting, likely a studio backdrop, reinforces the constructed nature of the image, a common practice in Victorian portraiture. The location, 55 Baker Street, was a fashionable address, suggesting a middle-class clientele. Photographs such as this were tools of social self-fashioning, reflecting and reinforcing societal expectations around family and gender. These studio portraits offer valuable insights into Victorian values. Examining studio records, census data, and etiquette manuals helps historians contextualize these images and unpack their cultural significance. Ultimately, this photograph and others like it remind us that art and photography are always contingent on social and institutional contexts.