Portret van een zittende vrouw met waaier in de hand 1859 - 1874

Jules Géruzet’s photograph captures a seated woman holding a fan, likely taken in the mid-19th century. The sepia tones evoke a sense of nostalgia, softened by the rounded corners of the image which create a vignette effect. The woman’s elaborate dress, complete with intricate ruffles, suggests a society portrait, but its small scale indicates a more intimate purpose, such as an item to be placed in a personal album. Géruzet manipulates the semiotics of portraiture, hinting at wealth and status while simultaneously scaling down the representation into something tactile and personal. This tension creates a dynamic, destabilizing fixed notions of representation. The way the woman is framed and presented challenges traditional portraiture's grandiosity. Instead, we are left with a piece that invites contemplation, revealing how even in formal portraiture, the personal and the intimate can subtly disrupt established visual languages.