When I saw this framed portrait and the old china resting on the ground of a Brussels flea market stall, I immediately regarded them as symbols. I also saw symbols within symbols, which could be compared and contrasted to each other in a photographic image to trigger the imaginations of those who will view it. The old photograph itself functions as a symbol. All photographs are actually symbolic representations of actuality. The picture is not the woman. It symbolizes her. She is long gone, but she lives on as a symbol in the old photograph, and in this one as well. Her demeanor is symbolic as well. For most of her generation, photography was a serious event, and her expression stands for the solemnity and gravity appropriate to such an occasion. It might represent her general state of mind as well. She appears to have been a stern, resolute person. The golden frame can also be seen as metaphorical, a gilded enclosure representing wealth, importance, and formality. The reflections of objects and trees on the frame’s glass can symbolize the intrusion of the present upon the past, or vice versa. It might also symbolize the natural world’s presence in human affairs. The china also becomes a metaphor when viewed next to the old photograph. These objects might have belonged to this woman, and now that she is gone, they seem abandoned and forlorn, particularly the cups that have been knocked over. Even the darkness that invades the frame can be seen as symbolic of the mysterious tone that pervades this image. Darkness represents the unknown, and there is much here that is just that. How we read, or fail to read, these symbols and metaphors will determine what this image will express to each of us.