Portret van een staande vrouw met hoed en paraplu 1894 - 1920

This is a photograph of a standing woman with a hat and umbrella by Leonardus Pieter Tismeer. Though the artwork date is unknown, Tismeer was alive between 1874 and 1961. This black and white image creates meaning through visual codes associated with bourgeois Dutch culture. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the rising middle class increasingly used photography to represent themselves and their values. The woman’s fashionable attire, including her hat and umbrella, signify a degree of economic comfort and social standing, while her composed posture and direct gaze convey an air of respectability and self-assurance. The institutional history of photography at this time is also relevant. Photography studios flourished, offering affordable portraiture that democratized image-making, yet maintained certain social hierarchies through conventions of pose and presentation. Historians study photographs like this alongside documents like census records, fashion magazines, and studio directories. This helps us to better understand the complex interplay between individual identity, social aspirations, and the evolving technologies of representation.