Portret van jeugdige koningin Wilhelmina 1905 - 1912

This is a portrait of a youthful Queen Wilhelmina by Guy de Coral & Co., dimensions given in millimeters. It is almost as if they are trying to trick us! Looking at it, I wonder what it was like to be this young Queen, standing there in her grand dress, maybe thinking about duty, about the country. The artist carefully poses the Queen, so it’s very different from the way I work when I’m making my paintings. The whole photograph feels so posed and deliberate, but there are subtle, interesting qualities. There's a quiet, almost ethereal quality to the image that really strikes me. It reminds me of other early twentieth-century photographs, with their own unique way of seeing and representing the world. These pictures seem to capture something beyond just physical appearance. It really does feel like a conversation between artists across time, inspiring new ways of seeing and expressing.