Portret van een staande man, aangeduid als Uncle Jim 1863

Curator: Here we have a gelatin-silver print from 1863 titled "Portrait of a Standing Man, referred to as Uncle Jim" by E. Andrews. It's quite striking, isn't it? Editor: It is. At first glance, I find a sense of reserved dignity. He has such a poised and somewhat melancholy demeanor, even though it's a formal, staged shot. I'm thinking about the social dynamics at play. Curator: Yes, exactly. I keep coming back to the surfaces depicted—the starched cloth, the polished wood, the glossy paper of the photograph itself—and I am intrigued how these elements come together through labor. A whole history of the social codes of dress and furniture manufacture contained in one little image. Editor: I agree. And the photographic process itself was, at the time, a fairly complex industrial undertaking. Do you get the impression of accessibility when viewing this image? Curator: Perhaps not in the immediate consumption of it, because having a portrait taken back then certainly reflected one’s social status. What's lovely, to me, is how it seems like the start of an intimacy, a fragile, suspended relationship. Almost like catching someone’s memory. The backdrop, that chair – does it belong to him, or is it a prop? Editor: The staged domesticity definitely leaves you pondering about the props, what kind of setting they represent and why he chose it to portray himself as an ideal family member. Did he have any saying over his likeness? Or the maker controlled most elements in this image. It certainly shows how portraiture operates under various industrial forces. Curator: Those are essential questions to think about in this portrait. Andrews gave us a glimpse into one person's universe in 1863. Editor: And now, hopefully, we’ve given our listeners some new lenses to reflect upon the artwork themselves.