Portret van een meisje, staand achter een stoel 1895 - 1920

Editor: This gelatin silver print, "Portret van een meisje, staand achter een stoel," made sometime between 1895 and 1920 by Gustaf Lesser, has such a timeless quality. There's an almost unsettling formality in the child’s pose. What story do you think this portrait is trying to tell? Curator: That formality is key. In these staged portraits, children were often presented as miniature adults, reflecting the societal expectations placed upon them, regardless of how restrictive these expectations were. This portrait exists in a moment when childhood was both romanticized and yet children from some communities were entering the workforce in greater numbers. Who was allowed a childhood, and who was denied? Editor: That's a really interesting tension. I hadn't thought about the photograph as speaking to labor and class divides. Curator: Exactly. The chair also functions as a symbol, it's both a prop and a kind of barrier. Is it supporting the child, or restraining her? Consider the composition: her direct gaze, her slightly awkward grip on the chair. What feelings do these details evoke? How does her sailor suit figure into ideas about childhood and national identity? Editor: So, you see the artist's choices not just as aesthetic decisions, but also as statements about gender, class, and perhaps even national identity in that era. Curator: Precisely! Photography is never neutral; it always involves choices and power dynamics. Editor: That makes me see the picture so differently now. It’s less sentimental and more…complex. Curator: And hopefully provokes deeper thinking about how we view children and childhood now, too.