Portret van een onbekend meisje met een boek before 1896

Maurice Bucquet made this small portrait of an unknown girl sometime around the turn of the 20th century, likely using a gelatin silver process on photographic paper. Photography had by this time become a thoroughly industrialized affair, involving specialized chemistry and equipment. This was also the era in which consumer culture really took hold, and photography played a key role. Though presented as an intimate portrait, this image is also an advertisement for the clothing, textiles, and accessories that the girl is wearing. The patterned shawl, the puffed sleeves, even the book, are all presented as desirable objects. Bucquet made many such photographs, mostly of actresses and other celebrities, and it's tempting to see this girl as aspiring to that status, or perhaps preparing for a stage role. Either way, photography had become the perfect medium for projecting identity, in a society that was more and more obsessed with its own image. It is a portrait that blurs the boundary between commercial and fine art.