Fotoreproductie van een portret van Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay before 1875

Editor: This is a photographic print of Ludwig Heinrich von Nicolay, sometime before 1875, attributed to M. Seifert. It has such a delicate feel; almost like you’re peering into someone's memory. What secrets do you think a portrait like this holds? Curator: Secrets? Perhaps only the silent, enduring kind. To me, it’s an exercise in arrested time. Look at the almost stark simplicity, the stark contrast of light and shadow. Von Nicolay stares fixedly ahead, seemingly peering into eternity. Photography back then… it wasn't a click and done thing. It was a ritual, almost ceremonial, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Definitely, a sense of the subject really having to be ‘present’ in the moment, doesn’t it? Do you think that the photographic print is more or less personal because of this long exposure process, do you think, as opposed to say, portrait painting? Curator: A compelling question. Perhaps both invite different kinds of intimacies. Painting could allow for subtle idealizations or theatrical embellishments, and yet with photography there is that irrefutable stamp of authenticity… What do you think the act of reprinting does to that authenticity, though? To the immediacy of the initial exposure? Editor: Good point. I hadn't thought about the *re*production element. It feels somehow… distant. Like a copy of a memory, even more layered and diluted than the original. Curator: Yes, it's a trace of a trace. It becomes like poetry – layers of echo resonating and reflecting on an initial image, now lost to us in the fog of time. This makes me consider that maybe it wasn't about absolute accuracy in his features that really interested M. Seifert, so much as conjuring something ethereal, almost wistful… Perhaps our memories are inherently reproductive – constantly revised! Editor: It’s strange how an image from so long ago can still raise questions about truth, authenticity, and how we perceive the past, isn’t it? Curator: Indeed. Art reminds us that the past isn’t a fixed point, but a flowing river… ever changing its course.