Portret van een onbekende zittende vrouw met een baby in haar armen 1880

This photograph of an unknown woman and her baby was created by H. Hirsch as an intimate memento, probably in the late nineteenth century. The woman is dressed in the fashion of the time, suggesting middle-class status. The presence of a servant and the relatively elaborate interior speak to a level of domestic comfort and privilege. At the time, photography had become a more accessible medium, and studios like Hirsch’s provided an important social function. By offering the ability to record likenesses and family connections, they were shaping a sense of personal and collective identity, defining an era of sentimental domesticity and celebrating the bourgeois family unit. The institutions and conventions of portrait photography offer insight into the values and self-perception of this time. To understand it better, we can look into the history of photography studios, examine fashion trends, and read literature from that era. In doing so, we start to appreciate its significance as a document of a particular time and place.