Portret van een onbekende jonge vrouw 1895 - 1908

This portrait of an unknown young woman was captured by E. v.d. Kerkhoff, on a small rectangular card. It’s sepia, which already feels like a kind of filter, a colour that says ‘history’ to me. The texture of the photograph is smooth, almost like vellum, with the image itself possessing a soft focus that romanticizes the subject. Look at the fading around the edges. These marks of age add to its depth, it's like a painting where the layers are revealed over time. There’s a quiet stillness to her pose, but it’s those horizontal stripes on her dress that really hold my attention. They’re so graphic, so modern, and yet, here they are in this old photograph. It makes me think about how we look at painting, how something like Agnes Martin can feel both ancient and totally now. Photography, like painting, is always having a conversation with itself, it's always moving and evolving.