Portret van Irene With-Sauer 1920 - 1930

This is a portrait of Irene With-Sauer by an anonymous artist. I find myself drawn to the tonal range of this small work, its delicate shades of gray and brown. It's like a whisper of an image, barely there, yet it holds so much. The texture is smooth, almost like velvet, and the light seems to emanate from within, casting subtle shadows across her face. There’s a certain softness to the gaze that captures my attention. The way the light catches her eyes, it feels intimate, vulnerable. It reminds me of the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, another artist who embraced the imperfections of photography to reveal something deeper about the human spirit. But unlike Cameron, this artist remains unknown, their story lost to time. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe the mystery only adds to the allure, inviting us to project our own stories onto the image. It's a gentle reminder that art is never truly finished, that it lives on in the eyes of the beholder, constantly shifting and evolving with each new encounter.