Portret van Aagje Nieuwmeijer 1914

This small portrait was made by American Automatic Fotografie of Aagje Nieuwmeijer, we don’t know when or for what purpose. It’s a kind of melancholy study in sepia tones, everything’s muted as if seen through a fogged window, or memory. The dress of the sitter and the backdrop kind of merge. Look closely and you can see the slightly lighter shade of her blouse and the folds of her outer layer, like a shadow play. What gets me is the little bell she’s holding. What’s the deal with that? Is it a memento, a charm? It's a mystery, and photography is good at those. It’s kind of like a Joseph Cornell box, you can’t quite put your finger on the story, and maybe that’s the point. It’s like Atget’s photographs of Paris, a document, but one that opens to a world of endless possibility.