Portret van een meisje 1867 - 1904

Johannes Ephraim made this small photograph of a girl, sometime during his career as a photographer in the late 19th century. During this era, photography studios flourished, enabling a growing middle class to participate in visual culture and memorialize themselves and their families. At first glance, it's easy to see this image as a simple portrait of a young girl in her best dress, but it's so much more. Photography was, and remains, deeply tied to social identity and class aspirations. Looking at the girl’s clothes and the carefully arranged set, we see how bourgeois families used portraiture to construct and broadcast a certain image of themselves. It's a deliberate performance. These images offer a window into how gender and childhood were understood at the time, but also into the complex ways people sought to represent themselves. The quiet dignity of this young girl speaks volumes about the values and hopes of her family, and the rapidly changing world they inhabited.