Portret van twee onbekende jongens c. 1882 - 1894

Curator: Jacques Chits, presumably a photographer working out of Haarlem and Amsterdam, made this portrait of two unknown boys. It's a gelatin silver print, likely taken sometime between 1882 and 1894. Editor: It's strangely unsettling. There's a directness to their gaze, an almost unnerving stillness, amplified by the tight framing. It feels weighty, considering how small the subjects are. And so pale! Curator: I would note the strategic employment of light and shadow; observe how Chits models their faces and clothes, delineating form and texture. There's a certain balance achieved by the placement of the two figures, and it gives order to the photograph. Note, too, the way the boys are positioned: one slightly in front, suggesting a hierarchy. Editor: Hierarchy or practicality? Making a gelatin print was a labor-intensive procedure, fraught with variables from emulsion to development. Posing children who likely weren’t still for long must have been part of that struggle. The very act of creating this photograph, the choices the photographer makes, feels palpable. Curator: Certainly, the photographic process is integral. However, analyzing the composition reveals more than the process involved: the delicate gradation of tone creates depth. It accentuates the details—the fine hair, the soft skin, capturing a fragile beauty. Editor: Fragile, indeed. Gelatin silver prints were commercially produced for mass consumption, cheaper to make, widely accessible… The lives these children lived beyond this captured moment – what conditions did they know, what clothes did they wear on a normal day? Knowing that informs everything! This object, in the context of its making, reflects not just beauty, but also the lives of those whose likenesses it carries. Curator: Perhaps. But it is through close attention to the elements of design—the lines, tones, forms—that we glean the deepest understanding of the artistic intention within this image, independent of speculative background details. Editor: Ultimately, for me, it’s about that ghostly surface, both index and echo of lost processes and fleeting existences. Curator: And for me, it’s about the elegant rendering of form and light, captured through the careful structuring of a moment.