Portret van een vrouw met opgestoken haar Possibly 1912 - 1919

This small portrait of a woman with her hair up was made, probably in a booth, by the American Automatic Photo Company. What strikes me is the tone, somewhere between sepia and monochrome, it's like a half-remembered dream. The surface has a cool, almost metallic sheen, like old photographs often do, but it's got a kind of melancholic beauty. Her expression isn't exactly sad, but there's a certain gravity to it, a weight of experience maybe. The way the light catches the details in her hair, the subtle gradations of tone in her face, it all adds up to a powerful sense of presence. I'm reminded of Eugène Atget's documentary photographs of Paris, capturing the city's spirit through its ordinary people and places. Both seem to find a strange beauty in the everyday. Art doesn't always have to shout; sometimes, it whispers.