Schoorsteenboezem van Nieuwe Rijn 10 te Leiden 1911

This photograph of a fireplace at Nieuwe Rijn 10 in Leiden was taken in January 1911. Imagine the photographer, someone from Monumentenzorg, carefully composing the shot, wanting to capture the details of this architectural feature. I wonder what the room felt like then? It looks like there may have been restoration work going on? The fireplace itself is solid, geometric. The decorations are fragile and organic. There is a dialogue going on there, between order and chaos, what is planned and what is more serendipitous. And the photograph itself, the sepia tones, give it a dreamlike quality, like a memory fading at the edges. It reminds me that every artist is in conversation with what has come before, with what surrounds them. And that even in something as seemingly straightforward as documenting a fireplace, there is room for interpretation, for feeling, for art.