Portret van een meisje, zittend op een stoel 1853 - 1889

Editor: Here we have Franz Wilhelm Deutmann’s photograph, "Portret van een meisje, zittend op een stoel," which roughly translates to “Portrait of a Girl, Sitting in a Chair,” created sometime between 1853 and 1889. There’s such stillness to it…a young girl poised, yet somewhat burdened by the gravity of the moment, I wonder what’s going through her head? How do you interpret this work? Curator: Ah, yes! There is a story etched in that stillness, isn’t there? It almost feels like glimpsing a character from a Brontë novel. What strikes me is the tension between the formality of the setting and the subject’s youth. The tasselled chair, the draped background, everything screams “portraiture”, and yet she looks almost… unready? She seems like a young flower just about to bloom. It makes me wonder what dreams lived behind her watchful eyes? Perhaps a painter. Editor: A painter? Why? Curator: Look at the way Deutmann plays with light and shadow, it gives it such painterly feeling. It reminds of early Rembrandts… almost chiaroscuro. Did you notice that subtle smirk she wears? Almost as if to mock our assumptions about such rigid posing norms. Editor: Yes! I see it now! What seems like an involuntary, somewhat melancholic sitting becomes almost a gentle mockery of the adults and their stuffy culture surrounding her! Curator: Exactly! I see both strength and an intelligence within that delicate expression… as though she knows much more than the world allows her to express, no? Editor: Absolutely! Before, it just seemed like another portrait, but I think I understand now – the sitter holds the real strength! I’m beginning to see the artist’s intentions, it feels almost as if she could simply burst free, a metaphor about finding strength as a woman in that particular historical setting, perhaps? Thanks! Curator: My pleasure! A photograph is like a conversation – we both walk away seeing something new, if only for a while.