Portret van een staande vrouw, leunend op de leuning van een bidstoel 1860 - 1900

Editor: Here we have a photograph from somewhere between 1860 and 1900 by Thomas Fall. It's called "Portrait of a Standing Woman, Leaning on the Railing of a Prie-dieu." It's got that kind of wistful, maybe even melancholy mood, wouldn't you say? What catches your eye in this image? Curator: You know, it’s funny you say melancholy. It’s the sort of wistful seriousness so common to portraits of the time – imagine sitting still for ages while some chap fusses with equipment, I suppose she would have time to look inwardly and the face settles with what's real. But melancholy? There’s something about the directness of her gaze that pushes against that for me. Perhaps resigned is better? Do you get a sense of the life she may have lived looking at the curve of her lips and that small turn of her wrist, the plain dress? Editor: Resigned...yes, that sits well. It's something in her posture. The way she's holding that small book so tightly… almost like it’s a shield. Is that what people did with their hands back then? What story do you think she’s holding there? Curator: Maybe it wasn't always about that. And the shield thought? Oh, spot on, or perhaps the small book in her hands serves as a visible display of piety and intellectual interest… she is literally embodying those traits in photographic form, an idea of the true lady for all time! She may or may not have actually had that interior life! I see the formal pose as almost a collaboration with Fall to construct an image. What about you, now that you're saying goodbye to that shield, what can you see? Editor: Now, I see someone crafting their image. Like the woman, Thomas Fall created something very thoughtful in those lines. Thanks, I hadn't seen it that way.