Straatbeeld met paardentrams in Den Haag 1884 - 1928

This little photograph, Straatbeeld met paardentrams in Den Haag, or Street Scene with Horse-Drawn Trams in The Hague, was made by Wilhelm Frederick Antonius Delboy sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It's a photo postcard, with two identical images side by side to create a stereo effect when viewed through a special viewer. Look closely, and you can see all sorts of fuzzy detail embedded in the photograph's surface; a horse and cart, buildings lining the street on either side, and even a church steeple poking up into the skyline in the distance. The image is very small, and its tones are muted and desaturated, giving it a ghostly quality. There is also evidence of damage: Scratches, fading, and fingerprints all act as reminders of the image’s age and history as a popular collectable. This piece reminds me of the work of Eugène Atget, who meticulously documented the streets of Paris at around the same time. Like Atget, Delboy was interested in capturing a particular moment in time, before it disappeared forever.