Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1860s

This is a photograph made by Edouard van der Elst. Though undated, its sepia tones and the sitter’s dress suggest a time in the late 19th century. The woman occupies most of the frame, her dark dress a broad triangle balanced by the smaller shapes of her head and hands. There’s a stillness to the image, but one might ask, what is the relationship between the woman and the curtain, or the small table? The curtain droops; its structure not supported by the rod, its weight pulling down, as if to convey a sense of the limits of presentation. The small table seems almost flimsy. The curtain and the table are structural elements that may have been included as props, but which, instead, function as semiotic signs that denote the limits of representation. Here, photography is not a window onto the world but a constructed and coded image, less an objective truth than a performance of one.