Portret van een onbekend kind

This is a portrait of an unknown child made by Ch. Schalch & Ebinger, but when is anyone's guess. It’s like a soft charcoal drawing made with light, all grays and creams, smudged together. It reminds me that art making is often a collaboration with your materials. The baby's got these wild curls popping out like a halo, and they nailed that fuzzy baby hair look! You can almost feel the soft texture of the lace around the collar. Look closely at those tiny shoes! They're so dark, almost black, and the way they’re crossed gives the piece a casual, intimate feel. This tiny detail makes me think about how much the technology of photography has changed, yet the desire to capture a moment in time remains the same. It's like those old daguerreotypes, where the image seems to float on the surface. Like a Gerhard Richter painting, it's both there and not there. A ghost of a memory.