Gezicht op de haven van Menton met aangemeerde zeilschepen c. 1886 - 1896

Editor: This is “View of the Port of Menton with Moored Sailing Ships,” a gelatin silver print taken by Henry Pauw van Wieldrecht between 1886 and 1896, currently housed at the Rijksmuseum. I’m immediately struck by the tonal range – how the soft gradations create this wonderfully tranquil atmosphere. What draws your eye, looking at this photograph? Curator: I'm drawn to the layered symbolism embedded within this seemingly simple seascape. Think about the harbor itself; it’s a threshold, a space of transition. What does it mean to capture this place, where journeys begin and end, at this moment in history? These sailing ships are powerful signifiers, connecting us to trade, exploration, and even empire. They evoke the age of sail, even as it was giving way to new technologies. Does the photographer intend a nostalgia or even an anxiety? Editor: That's fascinating. I hadn't considered the ships as symbols of a changing era. Does the stillness of the harbor contribute to that feeling? Curator: Absolutely. Stillness can be deceiving; it might speak to calm and security, but also to stagnation, to something held back or unsaid. The gelatin silver process, allowing for such detail, also evokes a past even as photography looked to the future. Does that stillness also bring to mind a cultural memory? What symbols feel timeless? Editor: That’s true – the choice of photography emphasizes that, too. Thanks – now, when I see the boats, I wonder if there's commentary here on a world in transition, suspended between past and future, tradition and modernity. Curator: Precisely. This image acts as a portal, inviting us to contemplate how we, too, are navigating constant currents of change and continuity, our own harbors always sites of departures and arrivals.