Portret van een onbekende vrouw met een hoed in een stoel before 1896

Editor: This is “Portret van een onbekende vrouw met een hoed in een stoel,” which translates to "Portrait of an unknown woman with a hat in a chair," created by Constant Puyo sometime before 1896. It’s a photographic print on paper, and what immediately strikes me is how incredibly soft and dreamlike it is. What secrets do you think this photograph holds? Curator: Ah, secrets! Perhaps more than we know, darling. To me, it’s a window—a shimmering, slightly imperfect pane—into the aspirations and anxieties of the fin de siècle. Look closely. The soft focus, almost obscuring her features, isn’t a flaw, but a deliberate choice. It suggests an interest in mood over exacting representation. I find myself wondering about the identity of the woman, doesn't the soft treatment turn her into an icon? Editor: Absolutely, she's almost ethereal! The printing beside it has stylistic script like aged paper, classical type. The placement on adjacent pages definitely enhances the artwork. Was this kind of artistic photography a common style for portraits at the time? Curator: It was becoming increasingly fashionable. Pictorialism, the movement Puyo championed, sought to elevate photography to the level of high art. By manipulating the image—through soft focus, unique printing processes—photographers asserted their creative control, blurring the lines between reality and artistic interpretation. The photo, to me, sings of elegance mixed with melancholy. It’s almost as if she is caught in a reverie. Editor: So it's less about capturing a perfect likeness and more about evoking a feeling. The printing on the page opposite accentuates a narrative with period text and historical font treatments. Very interesting. Curator: Precisely. Photography had a long love affair with portraying real likeness; here it starts yearning for something much more akin to painting, and much more impressionistic at that. What a delightful, and surprisingly contemporary conversation! Editor: Definitely. I’ll never look at old photos the same way again.