Portret van drie meisjes 1877

Curator: This photograph, titled *Portret van drie meisjes*, which translates to 'Portrait of Three Girls,' was captured in 1877 by Bartel Jonker. It’s a gelatin-silver print. I’m drawn to the slightly ethereal quality, almost dreamlike. Editor: Immediately, I notice the distinct textures rendered by the gelatin-silver process. The ruffles of their dresses appear stiff yet delicate. You can almost feel the starch, the crispness. Curator: Yes! It’s fascinating to consider how such rigid posing clashes with the softening effect of pictorialism—sort of like a veil drawn over reality. I wonder about the social pressures that informed their demeanor. Editor: I find myself considering the materiality itself. Gelatin-silver printing offered a remarkable tonal range, becoming quite popular in the latter 19th century. The image itself would have been the result of both a significant investment and a highly skilled practitioner. Curator: And the way they're arranged; it’s such a studied pose. There’s a tension between formality and youthful innocence that really grabs you. I can imagine the studio filled with artificial light and posed seriousness. It seems quite contrary to their natural, unconstrained play. Editor: It does indeed appear staged. Consider too the role photography played in the rising middle classes at this time. The mass production and distribution of these materials meant that people now had greater opportunities than ever before to consume and document their own lived experience. Curator: Absolutely. And beyond documentation, perhaps this portrait was meant to express something about the family’s social standing, an aspiration towards respectability visualized in a single captured moment. There is an element of immortality these girls sought with this gesture. I feel their echo reverberating through time. Editor: Yes, immortality achieved through a labor-intensive photographic process—from the manufacture of gelatin-silver materials to the development, printing, and subsequent display of the finished artwork. It's fascinating to me how we see the fruits of that labor distilled in front of us. Curator: I find myself pondering about those small lives, framed in time, while I feel grounded by the palpable substance you’ve emphasized, a blend of fragile memory, material agency and human intention.