Groepsportret van vier kinderen 1891 - 1907

Johan Gerard Lubbers made this photograph of four children sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, using a process involving silver salts and a light-sensitive surface. In its time, photography was considered cutting-edge technology, radically altering the production of images. The rise of photography democratized image-making, making it more accessible to middle class individuals. Yet it also relied on industrial systems of production; from the mining of silver, to the manufacture of specialized papers and lenses, photography depended on extensive networks of labor. Even a small portrait like this one involved various forms of making and exchange. The children’s clothes, finely woven, also speak of this era of burgeoning industry. Considering the photograph in terms of its production helps us to see it not just as a record of likeness, but as a material document, embedded in social and economic relations.