Portret van een onbekende jonge vrouw 1878 - 1886

Curator: Here we have a portrait, a photographic print of an unknown young woman, created sometime between 1878 and 1886 by Louis Robert Werner. It's part of the Rijksmuseum collection. Editor: She looks quite solid, doesn't she? Framed almost severely. Her gaze is direct, her clothing seems warm and heavy... almost maternal, if I can risk such projection! Curator: Well, the weight you sense comes in part from the photographic technology of the era. The glass plate negatives demanded long exposures, which often resulted in formal, stiff poses. And indeed, that fur coat looks extremely warm and dense, almost sculptural. It must have been tremendously valuable as the result of someone else’s labor and her ability to purchase it. Editor: True, one can almost feel the hand of the maker in such a work. The backdrop, however, it's a painted one, no? Such stark contrast! The way the young woman posed feels artificial but necessary and functional given that time period. Did it take much time and workforce to generate photographs back in the 1870s-1880s? Curator: Considerably more. Each print would have involved the labor of preparing the glass plate, carefully posing the subject, a long exposure time, and then developing and printing the final image in the darkroom. So a simple portrait involved a considerable investment of both money and human time. This woman clearly invested time, resources and effort to portray herself for a reason. What do you think it could have been? Editor: To control her image. Perhaps even create a sense of permanence as photography began supplanting painting for simple records and portraiture of family and peers. The result feels like a time capsule: it’s the woman's presence. We only know her through these alchemic and artisanal choices in that exact place in time. This material object has her energy in it somehow... Curator: That’s a compelling way to put it. This particular image then serves as both an individual story and a window onto the societal and technological transformations of that era. Editor: A beautiful combination! I feel that I learned and saw so much more today from these pictures than reading any written document!