Portret van een onbekende meisje, vermoedelijk als communicant c. 1880 - 1910

Curator: Looking at this photograph, “Portret van een onbekende meisje, vermoedelijk als communicant,” created sometime between 1880 and 1910 by Adrien Bombeeck, I'm immediately drawn into her gaze. What about you? Editor: It has such a weight of…absence? You know, like a ghost trapped in the albumen. The veil blurs the edge of her face, and all the intricate craft in this picture feels dedicated to rendering the girl's delicate spirituality visible, making devotion almost palpable. Curator: Visible, definitely, in the choice of albumen printing, a photographic process favored for its ability to render fine detail and subtle tones. It feels meticulously staged doesn’t it, this ritual? There's the veil, the rosary, and that intricately carved pedestal – all contributing to the performative aspect of faith during that era. Editor: Precisely! Consider the labor invested—cultivating eggs for the albumen, coating and sensitizing the paper, posing the subject just so. It's about more than just the image; it’s the confluence of industrial chemistry, manual skills, and, yes, maybe a budding industry capitalizing on sentimental family keepsakes. Also, I find the pedestal is very suggestive; it really raises the sitter, even if this elevates her symbolically. Curator: I find it's intriguing to think about how her likeness, captured through light and chemistry, was intended to exist and circulate within a family or community. It transforms her identity from the particular to something more representative or aspirational. What feelings did this album-sized photograph inspire? Editor: Well, on the one hand there’s something profoundly intimate about these kinds of images—it gives you access to a world that existed long ago in time. This image acts almost like a holy card and serves as a reminder to seek that transcendence; but on the other hand the technology used, along with all that went into capturing her likeness, served to distance us in many ways. In doing so it allows us to experience her youth in a rather more melancholic or even sentimental fashion. Curator: Perhaps there's some tension then, between what the technology was capable of and the sitter, because even after a century or so, she looks alive to us; looking into our world; maybe this has turned out well for all parties!