Portret van Elisabeth Catharina Broers en haar grootmoeder Geertruida van Pesch 1900 - 1910

This small portrait of Elisabeth Catharina Broers with her grandmother, Geertruida van Pesch, is a window into another time, made by an anonymous artist using, what looks like, a very early photographic process. I can imagine the artist carefully arranging the subjects, trying to capture their likeness. It's like the paint is suspended between clarity and abstraction. Look at the way the light catches the grandmother’s dress, the soft shadows creating a sense of depth. I wonder, who was this artist? I imagine they're playing around, trying to figure out this strange, new medium, experimenting with light and shadow. And you know, that's how art moves forward. Each generation builds on the discoveries of the last. The exchange of ideas through time makes art into a continuous conversation, a kind of call and response across centuries.