Portret van Cateau Waller c. 1890 - 1920

This is a portrait of Cateau Waller, made by Koene & Büttinghausen, and it looks like some kind of print. What I love is the tonal range, the whole thing is almost monochrome. It’s about subtlety, rather than contrast, and I think that really impacts how you read it. It's all about the surface, and it's not a straightforward surface, it's kind of a textured surface that is like something is being filtered through something. The subtle variations in tone and value across the surface create a soft, dreamy effect. There are some really interesting marks here and there, like around the edge of her hair, which looks like it's been deliberately blurred or softened. It has that sort of dreamy, ethereal quality you see in some early photographs. It reminds me a little bit of the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, who also used photography to create these really beautiful, intimate portraits. It shows how the meaning of an artwork is never fixed, and is always changing.