Portret van Konrad Behrend Behrens 1855 - 1890

Curator: Well, this daguerreotype captures the very image of 19th-century bourgeois respectability. It's called "Portret van Konrad Behrend Behrens", and the date, frustratingly, floats somewhere between 1855 and 1890, snapped by Matheus Hansen. Editor: Something about the sepia tones and that arched frame give this piece the solemnity of an icon, almost a saint from the dawn of photography. The soft focus evokes an eerie sense of distance—past is another country indeed. Curator: Precisely! Think about the sitters: They were stepping into a new world, conscious of posterity in a way few had been before the advent of accessible photography. They consciously chose props like that tall silk hat. It’s potent visual code. Editor: I see the hat as an emblem, or a totem perhaps. It's almost perfectly cylindrical; one could easily imagine it as a placeholder for idealized authority and male aspiration. His grip on the cane suggests perhaps, also a performative, slightly nervous elegance. Curator: What's interesting, though, is that the photo feels rather unposed, slightly accidental. His gaze is directed off-camera. Perhaps Hansen caught Herr Behrens in a rare moment of candid reflection—as candid as it could get within the lengthy constraints of early photographic technology. Editor: That averted gaze speaks volumes—it lends itself to projecting anxieties onto him: the dawn of industrial society and its uncertainties. It creates a space for contemplation within that highly structured visual space. Curator: It certainly invites projections. And Matheus Hansen here grants us access into the hidden lives of citizens. A peek, even, into the past of folks we'd otherwise never meet. Editor: A peek into the future, perhaps, of the very notion of personhood and individual visibility? We gaze now with smartphones capable of a million such portraits. This photograph becomes an origin myth of sorts. A true ancestor.