Drie portretten van Lina Cavalieri 1900 - 1930

This is a set of three portraits of Lina Cavalieri, by Ch. Reutlinger. It’s hard to put my finger on a specific date, but I would guess they were made in the late 19th century. These images really capture something about the materiality of photography at the time, and I see them as a set, like a strip of film or pages in a photo album. In the first, the soft focus around her face is incredibly romantic, and I love how she is half nude. The center image, with her head dramatically tilted, feels like a moment caught in time, which is what good portraiture is all about. The third image is a bit more formal, perhaps even posed. What's so interesting to me is that Reutlinger worked with these images as a process, revealing different facets of Cavalieri’s personality, and then presenting them as a collection. It reminds me of how Gerhard Richter would work with photos, cropping them, and sometimes even painting over them. I see these portraits not as fixed representations, but as fluid and evolving expressions of identity.