Portret van Edward Litt Laman Blanchard before 1885

Curator: Here we have Herbert Rose Barraud's portrait of Edward Litt Laman Blanchard, likely a gelatin silver print made before 1885. There's something melancholic about it, isn't there? Editor: Oh, yes. A certain gravity in the way he gazes just off to the side... but the sepia tones give it a strange warmth, like looking back at a fondly remembered dream. It really leans into the era’s stylistic preference for this genre. It seems Barraud was working to capture a man wrestling with nostalgia—but how interesting to work through photographs. I want to dive into the darkroom and examine the material processes, and how different developing methods can produce wildly distinct results… Curator: Exactly, and especially in terms of commerce and making art available in print at the time. But back to the sentimentality that strikes you – below the portrait is a quote, "And to see how many of mine old acquaintances are dead,” from King Henry IV, Part II. It adds layers, like we are intruding upon his personal memories or theatrical persona, or perhaps his melancholy from literary endeavors. The textured borders lend the photograph a sense of preciousness, further deepening this feeling. Editor: Absolutely! This really seems tied into the craft and dissemination methods, as gelatin-silver prints were also a way of standardizing photographs at the time. Reproducibility made pictures and likeness available to many new folks at a much lower price. Do you think that is a tension at work within the photo itself? Curator: Yes, definitely a commercial, yet highly intimate rendering through Barraud’s lens. There’s a real push-and-pull between creating a celebrity and memorializing loss that speaks so deeply to human nature—and how art intersects with those forces. I’m endlessly intrigued by what art and materials will last. What memory will we truly hold and carry on, materially or through other ways? Editor: Me too! It is almost a call-to-arms! Material, sentimental, loss—these are all parts of life! Thank you, Edward Litt Laman Blanchard, for a tiny glimpse of how all of these ideas show up in art and society.