Reclamefoto met serviezen en keukengerei van de firma C. Read & Co., Baltimore, Maryland 1920 - 1930

This is a photograph, probably made in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, by the Stadler Photographing Company, and it’s a straight-up advertisement for the firm C. Read & Co. But the palette is very limited, everything in shades of grey and white, with the forms of the plates and pitchers emerging from the dark background, like ghostly apparitions. There’s a definite sense of flatness to the image as a whole; everything is presented on one plane, squashed together, but it’s so clear and sharp it’s almost unsettling. Look at the way the light falls on the Ewer and Basin in the bottom left of the frame, you can see the way it’s been carefully arranged to show the form. There’s a real tension in the way the objects are positioned, but this is what makes the image so compelling. It reminds me a lot of the photography of Stephen Shore, who also takes everyday objects and elevates them to the level of art. With that, the history of art is an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time.