Intereur met hangend gevogelte c. 1865 - 1900

Curator: Standing before us is an intriguing gelatin silver print, attributed to Laurens Lodewijk Kleijn, titled "Interieur met hangend gevogelte"—"Interior with Hanging Poultry," created sometime between 1865 and 1900. Editor: My first impression is one of haunting beauty. It's dark, shadowy… the texture almost makes it seem like a forgotten fragment, discovered in an old attic. There's something melancholic about the composition. Curator: The choice of gelatin silver print as a medium lends it that ethereal quality, amplifying the shadows and blurring the details. It captures the aesthetic sensibilities of the Dutch Golden Age, yet filtered through the lens of 19th-century realism. We have the conventions of genre painting rendered anew via photography. Editor: The hanging fowl—a dead bird—inevitably calls up notions of the still life, of abundance, but twisted by an inescapable encounter with death and mortality. It is quite fascinating how Klein combines traditional symbolism with a modern approach to photographic creation. Curator: The crackling texture invading the image feels, for me, like a poignant accident—almost mirroring our human vulnerabilities. We are confronted by fragility, perhaps Klein had hoped for something perfect that cracked. How powerful. Editor: Absolutely. And this sense of decay, coupled with the period when this photograph was realized, encourages a closer reading into the societal norms prevalent back then. Consider hunting, power dynamics, perhaps class disparities embedded in the scene… What’s “ordinary” can suddenly seem very telling about history. Curator: It prompts introspection—questioning our place in this larger cycle, acknowledging the transience. I imagine Laurens deeply involved with all the questions of being, living. I am touched. Editor: A poignant reflection, reminding us how much these frozen moments—still lifes with or without actual life present—reflect ourselves and the societies that create and observe them. Curator: Precisely. Beauty shadowed with death... Editor: History marked with light.