Twee mannen tijdens dubbelspel op een tennisbaan before 1894

Curator: This is a fascinating glimpse into leisure time, titled "Twee mannen tijdens dubbelspel op een tennisbaan", or "Two Men Playing Doubles on a Tennis Court". We believe it's from before 1894, attributed to Hendrik Herman van den Berg, and, as you can see, it is a photograph. Editor: Isn't it strange seeing tennis in what feels like sepia? Gives the impression that they are maybe not quite playing but reenacting or posing. The tennis court feels secondary to the tall trees looming in the background. Curator: Exactly! It offers a look into how emerging middle-class values regarding sport were expressed visually. Tennis became incredibly fashionable in elite circles and in upper class society. It became less about the playing than the showing off of a specific persona. Editor: Showing off seems about right! Though both men are dressed very formally for exercise! One is in full dark formal attire. Is that performative leisure, a type of dandyism expressed through athleticism? I do appreciate the way the dark background allows the eye to focus on that wonderful net pattern. Curator: That very likely plays into it. As photography became increasingly accessible to middle and upper-middle classes, genre painting capturing scenes of everyday life rose in popularity. Remember, they are composing an image of themselves to promote a kind of lifestyle! Editor: What’s also interesting is what seems to be damage in the top-left corner and right-side background. In an age obsessed with the perfection of the photographic image through filters, there is beauty and realness in those small accidents and decay. Curator: You are highlighting a critical tension, yes. On the one hand, photography was useful as social documentation, like with Jacob Riis' exposé on tenement life in the U.S.. However, on the other hand, photographs like these present highly stylized, sanitized, even illusory accounts of lived experience. Editor: That contrast makes me feel a pang of the blues. I like that. It really is about that precise moment but that moment feels a century away. I suppose there's also something innately romantic about viewing early photos. Curator: It really invites us to consider the narratives we create around history and leisure and how images help us forge those associations. Editor: Precisely, it gives new significance to my Sunday doubles match! Thanks!