Portret van een meisje 1855 - 1870

The Sanders Brothers created this carte-de-visite of a young girl in the Netherlands, during a time when photography was rapidly democratizing portraiture. Photography studios popped up everywhere, and these small cards became a common way for people to share their likeness with friends and family. The girl's formal attire, with its lace detailing and high neckline, speaks to the conventions of middle-class representation. Such clothing acted as a visual marker of social status. These cards also had a collecting craze aspect to them. People displayed them in albums like this one to show off their social connections. What is interesting is that it provides us with a snapshot, no pun intended, of a particular social world and its visual values. To understand this image, we must dig into the archives, looking at studio records and social histories of photography to understand the complex relationship between self-representation and social identity.