Huwelijksportret van 'Bets' (trouwen met de handschoen) before 1915

Curator: This is "Huwelijksportret van 'Bets' (trouwen met de handschoen)"—Wedding Portrait of 'Bets' (Marriage by Proxy)— a gelatin-silver print, a photograph if you will, taken by Jean Vaessen sometime before 1915. Editor: It’s lovely. Terribly poignant though, isn’t it? Something about the monochrome and the slightly awkward posing... there's a sadness, a quiet anticipation almost ghostlike, despite all the white of her outfit, that’s catching my eye immediately. Curator: Yes, that tension speaks volumes. “Trouwen met de handschoen"—marriage by proxy. Look closer— the absent groom's portrait sits on the chair next to her. A floral arrangement stands in for his actual presence. These unions were often conducted when the groom was unable to attend for reasons of distance, or sometimes military service during wartime. Editor: I see that now. She looks almost detached, like a statue... or maybe she is very much present and yearning. Did she have any agency, I wonder? It all seems so terribly transactional; the photograph as a contract perhaps? And such heavy symbolism layered within. The texture too – the gelatin print does add to the otherworldly feel of this bridal study. Curator: Indeed. Photography as a commodity here is essential to the social ritual; its material presence legitimizes the absent male body within societal constructs such as matrimony. We can read this material object as an intrinsic cog of marriage negotiations and regulations in pre-war society. The image’s status, then, elevates above a purely aesthetic document. Editor: Absolutely. The artist, Vaessen, captures this perfectly…the materiality enhances that separation and the lack. Even the angle and depth chosen seems intent on presenting absence and the yearning or obligation it implies, rather than intimate connectedness we now expect of couple portraiture. Curator: Studying the societal circumstances makes this work all the more telling about societal practices, shifting gender dynamics, and our material conditions within courtship. Editor: True. Suddenly it’s so much more than just a simple, vintage photograph. There’s this whole, complicated story about human connection encoded within this gelatine print from all that time ago, quietly unfolding before our very eyes.