Portret van Wouter Hugo Tienruyter 1900 - 1920

This is Wilhelm Gerardus Baer’s photograph "Portret van Wouter Hugo Tienruyter". It’s an old black and white photograph that looks like it's been pulled straight from a family album. The thing that strikes me is the way it plays with formality, the pose is dignified, but the surface feels so casual, almost like a snapshot. Then there is that scrawled signature across the negative. Was that by the artist or the sitter? It brings a real sense of the hand into the image. The texture of the gelatin silver print is so smooth and cool to the touch, and contrasts with the rough paper of the album page. You can almost smell the dusty pages! The soft grey tones give the picture a timeless quality. It reminds me a little of some of the slightly later portraiture of someone like August Sander in its attention to the details of everyday life, but it has this extra layer of intimacy which makes it feel so personal. This ambiguity is what makes it so engaging.