Portret van een onbekende jonge vrouw met hoed, Soerabaja 1890 - 1920

Curator: Just look at this captivating photograph; it's "Portret van een onbekende jonge vrouw met hoed, Soerabaja," taken sometime between 1890 and 1920, and attributed to Onnes Kurkdjian. Editor: What strikes me first is this air of delicate mystery around her. The sepia tones soften everything, and that hat is enormous, dominating the entire image! Curator: Absolutely. That hat is quite the statement piece, isn't it? Beyond just being fashionable, the large hat situates the woman socially. During this colonial period, dress was laden with all kinds of political, cultural and identity claims. Editor: That’s a keen observation. It also makes me wonder, who was this woman? It's tantalizing that she remains unknown, especially in light of the photograph's location. Surabaya – imagine the stories she could tell. The pose itself is fascinating too; it's confident but also demure, and a good question is where she imagined this photo being displayed or kept? Curator: We are invited to speculate. Considering the timeframe, the burgeoning influence of post-impressionism and romanticism in art meant photography began exploring aesthetic and emotional expression alongside documentary purposes. Editor: Right. And, like so many studio portraits from the time, it almost feels like she's performing a role, both for herself and for posterity, under the social mores that she felt compelled to express in the photo, however genuinely held. It's this mix of intimacy and performance. Curator: It invites questions about representation and the politics of image making, and especially about this interplay between performance and a person's actual lived experiences and positionality in an empire at the time. Editor: And that single rose decorating the hat – a potent, fragile symbol that speaks to an awareness of passing time and a touch of fleeting beauty, against an otherwise stoic frame. Well, I'll carry that in my thoughts today. Curator: It definitely casts a lingering spell. It's like a brief moment seized, asking to be contemplated from our vantage point in the present.