Chanel 171

The distant look in Chanel's eyes in combination with her outfit triggered me. It dawned to me that she was almost a replica of photographs taken by a famous Dutch painter between 1893 and 1895.

His name was George Hendrik Breitner (b. 1857 - d. 1923) and his model was called Geesje Kwak (b. 1877 - d. 1899). Most of Breitner's paintings depict Amsterdam street life, not the upper classes but working class people. A peculiar thing about his paintings was the invariably bad, often rainy weather. His memory was still very much alive in Amsterdam when I was a child. My Gran and her friends used to say "It's Breitner weather" on rainy days.

Breitner took up photography when the first cheap cameras became widely available. He used his photos as sketches for his paintings. Apparently Breitner or his camera was unable to take good pictures on sunny days. This explains the bad weather in his paintings. He kept his photography work to himself and most of the old photos only surfaced two decades ago.

In the early 1890's, Breitner attended an exhibition of Japanese art and then decided to use that theme in a series of paintings. He ordered screens and Japanese kimonos from the Far East. His next step was to recruit a suitable model. Geesje was the only model who frequently posed for him. Her name is known because Breitner kept a notebook in which the days and the fees were documented. Their collaboration eventually led to a series of paintings called "Girl in kimono".

Even at the age of sixteen, Geesje already had a posing style of her own. What struck me was the expression in her eyes. And then there was Chanel sitting on a pizzeria terrace in roasting hot Gronau. Her image blended with my memories of the old photos of Geesje taken by Breitner. Without any explanation I grabbed the pince-nez from the box and asked Chanel to keep it in her hand. She produced the same absent look, not aware of my connection with the distant past. And this lead to this rather special series.