Gezicht op het standbeeld van Laurens Koster in Haarlem 1858

Curator: Immediately, I’m struck by the duplication here. It feels dreamlike, doesn't it? Like one of those old View-Masters promising to whisk you away… Editor: Well, hold that thought! What we're actually looking at is "Gezicht op het standbeeld van Laurens Koster in Haarlem," a gelatin silver print, probably hand-colored, dating back to 1858 by Charles-Henri Plaut. It presents two views, side by side, for stereoscopic viewing. Curator: Stereoscopic! Of course. That sepia tone, those soft edges… it all breathes such longing. I keep imagining reaching out and being pulled into that square, lost in Haarlem of yesteryear. A longing for a tactile past made ghostly by the photograph itself. Editor: What draws me in is Plaut’s technique and its context. It’s all about craft and process. Look closely—how the image is presented tells you so much about the ambition of photography as it struggled towards artistry and, well, utility. Stereoscopic prints were basically the VR headsets of their day! Mass-produced but striving to be "art". Curator: Absolutely. And Koster himself, frozen in stone – a permanent resident both celebrated and somehow imprisoned by the image, perpetually gesturing in a bygone now…he's almost a secondary character in Plaut's greater, photographic theater of making-visible. Editor: Yes! Consider how much the physical print-- its dimensions, paper type, coloring if any—contributed to that "theater" as you put it! The tactile quality informed the viewing experience as much as the content. Someone, somewhere had to manufacture those emulsions and that paper…to create that image for consumption. Curator: It speaks to me of ephemerality, that everything – us, our grandest statues – becomes history so quickly. This photo whispers, "Remember, even bronze fades.” Editor: While it's faded in its coloration it survives robustly, if paradoxically! It’s less about fading than about endurance – not of Koster's glory specifically, but of photographic media's material power to transmit "visions" through time. A material paradox of its own.