Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1885 - 1919

This is Salomon Goudsmid’s sepia photograph, “Portret van een onbekende vrouw” – “Portrait of an unknown woman”. What strikes me is the woman's gaze. I wonder what she was thinking, what she dreamed about, and how Goudsmid, being a man, felt about the woman he photographed. The tones remind me of dried flowers, something antique, aged. The ruff around her neck is so elaborate, yet her face is quite plain and unadorned. This contrast makes her beauty seem stark, as if she’s about to tell us something important. Photography, like painting, is about light, tone, and composition. The oval vignette, with its sepia tones, gives the image a dreamlike quality, as if memory itself is fading. It reminds me of other portraits, like those by Julia Margaret Cameron. It shows how artists, through different media and eras, continue to explore the human condition, and the mysteries of identity and time.