Untitled (studio portrait, girl posed with vase of flowers, Victorian style clothes) c. 1910

Curator: This intriguing piece is an untitled studio portrait by Durette Studio, currently held at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's haunting, isn't it? Like a ghostly apparition caught between worlds. The inversion gives it such an ethereal quality. Curator: Indeed. The young woman posed with the vase of flowers evokes Victorian-era sensibilities about beauty, fragility, and the fleeting nature of life itself. Editor: Those flowers...they're almost like a memento mori, a reminder of mortality set against the backdrop of youthful innocence. Curator: Precisely. Inverted images like this also carry an element of psychological tension. The reversal can feel unsettling, as though we're seeing a hidden aspect of reality. Editor: It makes you question what's real and what's a reflection. It is like a waking dream, isn’t it? A lovely, melancholic one. Curator: It certainly invites a deeper consideration of visual perception and the symbolic weight of photographic imagery. Editor: I think this photograph makes one ponder about hidden and distorted realities—the unseen parts of youth that emerge in time.