Portret van een meisje, leunend op de leuning van een stoel 1861 - 1874

This albumen print depicts a girl leaning on the back of a chair, captured by Albert Greiner. Her pose, with arms crossed, bears a lineage harking back to ancient portraiture, conveying self-possession. Consider the ancient Roman portraits where crossed arms signified authority. This gesture echoes through Renaissance paintings and resurfaces here, in a new medium. Yet, the girl’s youth complicates this symbol. The crossing of arms, a gesture laden with implications of power and status, shifts. It becomes a shield, a subtle assertion of self in a society defining her role. The drape behind her head reminds one of a halo, and we can see the cross she is wearing around her neck. Are these symbols of purity, innocence, sacrifice? These layers of borrowed gestures grant her a kind of agency within the formal constraints of the portrait. Meaning is never fixed, but endlessly cyclical.