Portret van een gezin 1860 - 1900

This is Josef Gutkaiss’s ‘Portret van een gezin’, or ‘Portrait of a Family,’ made sometime during his lifetime. Gutkaiss was born in 1834, so we can situate this image in the mid to late 19th century, when photography was becoming more accessible. The image depicts a bourgeois family: father, mother and child. The father stands tall in a suit and waistcoat, his hand tucked into his jacket, while the mother sits holding a child in a gingham dress, upon her knee. In this traditional pose, the mother and child are physically lower than the father, visually reinforcing the patriarchal structure of 19th-century family life. What does it mean to witness this traditional display, at a time when conventional family structures are being challenged? What narratives and relationships are excluded from this image? It invites us to consider the emotional nuances and societal expectations embedded within the seemingly simple portrait of a family.