Portret van een staand meisje met schep in de hand 1885 - 1900

Louis Désiré Dupont made this portrait of a young girl with a spade in hand, using photographic methods that were common to his time in 19th century France. In this staged photograph, the girl is posing with her spade in front of a painted backdrop depicting the sea. She is surrounded by her toys, including a wheelbarrow, a rake, and a small sailboat, alluding to her family's wealth. The girl’s white dress, jewelry, and neat hair further indicate that she belongs to an upper-class family, a class that commissioned such portraits to celebrate their offspring. The photograph also speaks to the rise of the middle class and the development of new technologies such as photography in the 19th century. Photography enabled artists to capture realistic images of people, objects, and places, and it offered the growing middle class a way to document and commemorate important moments in their lives. To understand this photograph better, one would look at a range of sources from the period, including family records, newspaper articles, and social histories. These all shed light on the meaning and significance of the photograph in its own time.