Groepsportret van vijf meisjes, waaronder dochters van de familie Geertsema, in het atelier van Henk van den Berg before 1894

This is a photograph of five young women, including members of the Geertsema family, taken in the studio of Henk van den Berg. Group portraits like this one, produced in the Netherlands, offered families a way to publicly display their status and kinship networks. In a time when social mobility was increasingly determined by economic success, the Geertsema family likely commissioned this photo to assert their place in society. The studio setting, with its draped backdrop, was a common trope that signaled the formality of the occasion. Consider the subtle messages conveyed through the women’s clothing and poses, which speak to the values of the time. Such signifiers provide rich material for historians to analyze and interpret. Through careful examination of photographic archives, family records, and studio ledgers, we can begin to understand how images like this one participated in the construction of social identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.