Portret van een jonge vrouw 1850s - 1860s

This is a photograph, titled "Portret van een jonge vrouw", by Hermanus Philippus Jacobus Schuiten. It’s a small albumen print, a popular photographic process in the mid-19th century, known for its fine detail and warm tonal range. What’s compelling about the albumen print is the process itself. It involves coating paper with egg white and silver nitrate, then exposing it to light through a negative. Think about that: egg white, an organic material, used as a key ingredient in a burgeoning technology. This combination of the handmade and the mechanical is crucial to understanding early photography. The sharp focus and delicate gradations of tone evident in the image, would have been prized at a time when photography was still a relatively new medium. The labour involved – from preparing the paper to carefully controlling the exposure and developing the print – speaks to the value placed on capturing a likeness in this era. It was a painstaking method, not yet fully industrialized, giving these early photographs a tangible connection to the hand.