Portret van een zittende vrouw met baby op schoot 1860 - 1900

Editor: Here we have "Portret van een zittende vrouw met baby op schoot", which roughly translates to "Portrait of a seated woman with baby on her lap", a gelatin silver print from between 1860 and 1900 by Hanna Hatherly Maynard. There's a quiet formality to it, almost like a posed tableau. What do you see in this photograph? Curator: I see a very deliberate engagement with the burgeoning industry of photography at the time. Note the materials: the gelatin silver print itself, a process developed through labor and chemical experimentation, becoming increasingly standardized and accessible. Consider, too, how this image, reproduced and disseminated, democratized portraiture, shifting its production from the hands of the artisan to the factory or the studio. Editor: So, you're focusing less on the individual depicted and more on the industrial and social context? Curator: Precisely. The very act of producing this photograph involved labour - from the factory worker creating the photographic paper, to the studio assistants preparing the chemicals, to the photographer themselves operating the camera. This wasn’t just an image, it was a product. Editor: I guess I hadn't thought about the layers of production. It does give you a different perspective on these older photos. Curator: It invites questions about who had access to this technology, how its circulation affected artistic practices, and what new social and personal narratives became available thanks to this method of mass production. Photography’s integration with other forms of mass media highlights both labor practices and how those practices became central to popular notions of selfhood and documentation. Editor: Thanks, I’m definitely walking away thinking more about materiality than just the mother and child. Curator: And how the supposed art of portraiture became entangled in new production flows.