Portret van E.T. van Braam Possibly 1889

W. Hoffert’s “Portret van E.T. van Braam” is a photograph, measuring 135 by 95mm, set within the leaves of an album. We know next to nothing about either Hoffert or van Braam. The portrait is of a woman, likely of the middle class given her attire, and it presents a conventional representation of women during its time. Given how little we know about the subject of the image, we can instead turn our attention to the image itself, and the photograph’s implicit claim to be a sort of archive. Who keeps photographs in albums? What is the labor of the assembly of such keepsakes? What are the gendered implications of such activity? Do photographs in albums constitute a kind of proto-feminist archive of foremothers? Consider what this carefully preserved image tells us about the construction of memory, and the role of women within these familial and social structures. The image is a fragment, a shard of a history, and a question.