Charlotte Pemberton
Begin with the mount, not the face
Before you study the sitter, study the card. Dutch studio mounts were manufactured to fairly standard sizes, and those sizes changed over time in ways that are surprisingly reliable for dating. Measure the mount in millimetres and you will usually find yourself in one of a handful of periods.
- Carte de visite: roughly 54 x 89 mm. Introduced in the Netherlands around 1860 and dominant through the 1860s and 1870s, with a long tail into the 1880s.
- Cabinet card: roughly 108 x 165 mm. Popular from about 1875 and still common well into the 1900s.
- Boudoir and larger formats: from the 1890s, often showing a full-length figure or a group.
- Postcard format: approximately 88 x 138 mm, from about 1900 onwards — the format that carries so many Edwardian and Great War family portraits.
- Tintypes: variable, thin, slightly magnetic, and often uncased.
Card colour is a useful secondary clue. Cream and white mounts dominate the earliest years, whereas dark grey, charcoal and near-black mounts were fashionable in the 1890s and 1900s. Gilt bevelled edges belong mainly to the 1890s to the 1910s, and rounded corners become more common as you move into the twentieth century.
Read the back of the card
The reverse of a Dutch photograph is often the richest single source of evidence. Look for the photographer's name, street address and town, and note the wording carefully. Terms such as Atelier, Photografie, Portret- en Landschapsfotograaf and Kunsthandel all point to particular kinds of studio, and the vocabulary shifts over the decades.
Two details are especially helpful. First, royal appointments: a photographer described as Hofphotograaf or displaying a Koninklijke warrant can usually be tied to a known date of appointment. Second, address changes. If you can establish when a studio moved from one street to another — using town directories, local histories or dated examples in other collections — you can bracket every photograph carrying that address.
Also watch for small printed notes such as cliché bewaard, meaning the negative was kept for reprints, or the mention of medals and exhibition awards. These were marketing devices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the dates of the exhibitions themselves can pin a card down precisely. Embossed initials, blind stamps and monogram medallions generally belong to the same era.
Identify the photographic process
Hold the photograph at an angle to a window and let the light reveal what it is made of.
- Daguerreotype (roughly 1842 to 1860): a mirror-like silver surface, usually in a hinged case. Very few Dutch examples survive outside museums.
- Ambrotype (late 1850s to 1860s): a glass plate, often cased, with a slightly ghostly image.
- Tintype or ferrotype (1860s to 1900s): a thin iron plate, cheap, often slightly bent, commonly cased only in its earliest years.
- Albumen print (1860s to about 1895): creamy white, thin paper, often yellowed at the edges, mounted on card, with a tendency to curl.
- Gelatin silver and bromide prints (from about 1890): cooler grey-black tones, sturdier paper, and by the 1900s the ordinary look of a snapshot.
Dutch amateurs took up photography enthusiastically in the 1880s, so an informal family group on thinner paper may well predate a formal studio portrait in your collection.
Let the clothes and hair speak
Fashion gives you a dating window even when the mount tells you nothing. For women, look at the silhouette: the crinoline belongs to roughly 1856 to 1868, the bustle to the 1870s and again in the 1880s, and the dramatic leg-of-mutton sleeve to about 1893 to 1897. Pigeon-fronted blouses and neat shirtwaists point to the 1900s, while softer, lower collars and shorter skirts suggest the later 1910s and 1920s.
Men's clothing is subtler but still useful. Frock coats and high starched collars dominate the 1870s and 1880s; lounge suits and softer collars take over after 1900. The height and shape of the collar, and the width of the tie knot, are quick indicators.
Two further clues are easy to overlook. Boys in skirts or dresses were usually under five or six years old, a custom that fades around the turn of the century — so a boy in a skirt photographed alongside a school-age sibling helps you estimate ages and therefore the year. Hairstyles help too: the pompadour of the 1890s and 1900s, and the shingled or waved hair of the 1920s, are unmistakable.
Dutch details that narrow the years
Some clues are specific to the Netherlands. Regional dress from Volendam, Marken, Spakenburg or Friesland can be tempting to date, but be cautious — studios kept costumes on hand for sitters who wanted a picturesque souvenir, so a kraplap collar or a lace bonnet may be theatre rather than daily wear.
Do pay attention to uniforms. A young man in Dutch army uniform photographed during the mobilisation of 1914 to 1918, usually in a group with no campaigning wear, is very likely a soldier on leave or in training during the First World War. Town names are another useful anchor: spellings shifted, and a studio advertising itself in Den Haag or 's-Gravenhage can sometimes be tied to a particular period of printed usage.
Putting the evidence together with confidence
Work from the strongest evidence downwards. A printed date or a photographer's address change beats a guess about a collar; a collar beats a vague feeling about the sitter's face. Cross-check against what you already know: wedding dates, births, deaths, mourning dress and the ages of children will often eliminate three decades at a stroke.
Write your conclusions on acid-free paper slipped behind the photograph, never on the image itself or on a valuable mount. Note the format, the photographer, the process and your reasoning, plus the date on which you made the assessment. Scan at high resolution, compare session numbers between related portraits, and store everything in archival sleeves away from direct light and damp. Each small, careful observation you record now will save a cousin a great deal of guesswork in twenty years' time.
