Portret van een vrouw en twee kinderen bij een buitentafel 1899

This stereograph by Geldolph Adriaan Kessler captures a woman and two children seated at an outdoor table. Here we see the archetypal image of motherhood—the woman, poised and central, flanked by her children. This composition echoes countless depictions of the Madonna and Child throughout art history. The formal attire of the subjects, especially the hats and elaborate clothing, hints at bourgeois aspirations. Yet, there is an almost theatrical rigidity in the children's poses, which evokes a sense of unease. Think of the countless family portraits of centuries past, each trying to capture an ideal, a moment of serene domesticity. Such images, though seemingly still, pulse with the anxieties and desires of their time, revealing how we continually revisit and revise our collective memories. The mother figure, here and across time, remains a potent symbol, forever caught between reality and aspiration, an eternal return of the same.