Portret van een leerling van de Koloniale School voor Meisjes en Vrouwen te 's-Gravenhage Possibly 1921 - 1929

This portrait of a student from the Colonial School for Girls and Women in The Hague is a quiet little thing, but it speaks volumes. The greyscale makes me think about the history of photography, and the way early portraits captured a kind of serious stillness. I imagine the photographer carefully setting up the shot, maybe in a makeshift studio. The student herself is fascinating—her smile is coy, perhaps a little nervous, and her hat and fur collar look like they are props, signs of a certain status. There's a real exchange of ideas across time here, the photographer consciously or unconsciously channeling earlier portrait traditions, setting the stage for so many future artists and image-makers. The way the light falls on her face, the texture of her fur, it’s all part of this ongoing conversation about who we are and how we see each other. Painting, photography—they're all just different ways of scratching at the same questions, aren't they?