Jo van Raab van Cantstein en Wilhelmina van Zijll de Jong op de heide, Hilversum 1933

This is a small, anonymous photograph taken in Hilversum, of Jo van Raab van Cantstein and Wilhelmina van Zijll de Jong sitting on the heide. I wonder who took this photo. Maybe one of the women propped the camera on a rock or asked a stranger to take the shot. The artist has made some aesthetic decisions: they chose to capture these women in a particular light, to feature a golf course in the background, and to frame this as a memory. I imagine the two women enjoying the pleasant weather, pausing to take a rest on the bench. It must have been a lovely moment for them to escape to the countryside from the city. It is intriguing to consider why the photographer was inspired to capture this specific scene and how they approached the composition. This photograph acts as a visual record of the past, preserving a fleeting instant in the lives of the two women. I wonder who the intended audience for this photograph was and how it has been circulated and viewed over time. Like any painting, this image is an artifact with many complex layers.