De kamer van Henk van de Berg op de Turfmarkt 3 in Amsterdam c. 1896

Hendrik Herman van den Berg's photograph invites us into his personal space at Turfmarkt 3 in Amsterdam. As a Dutch artist who lived through both World Wars, the domestic sphere held particular significance during times of immense social upheaval and displacement. We see a room teeming with objects—busts, photographs, a fur-covered chaise lounge—each potentially holding personal and artistic meaning. The arrangement feels intimate, almost like a self-portrait through objects, revealing the artist’s interior world. The sepia tone evokes a sense of nostalgia, but also a sense of the past being actively lived in. It asks us to think about the way personal spaces become archives of memory and identity. I wonder about the unnamed sitters of the portraits and the stories attached to them. What did it mean for van den Berg to surround himself with these images and objects? There's a quiet intensity to the photograph, a sense of someone trying to anchor himself in a rapidly changing world, finding solace and inspiration within the confines of his own room.