Portret van een onbekend meisje met bloemenmand 1902 - 1909

Anton Cornelis Thomann made this photograph, Portret van een onbekend meisje met bloemenmand, at an unknown date. The soft, almost blurred quality gives the picture a timeless feel. It makes me think about how photography, even when it tries to capture reality, is always a kind of abstraction. Look at the girl’s dress, all frills and lace. It’s like a cloud of white, each fold a little gesture, each pleat a tiny mark. I'm drawn to the texture in her hair, it looks almost like a halo of curls. The way the light catches it makes me wonder about the artist’s process. Did he spend hours trying to capture that fleeting moment, or did it just happen? The whole piece feels so delicate, so fragile. Like a memory that could fade away at any moment. Like the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, who used photography to explore themes of beauty and mortality, Thomann’s portrait is a meditation on the transient nature of life.