Brustbild eines lesenden Mädchens mit Haube 

Benjamin Calau produced this etching of a girl reading while wearing a bonnet in eighteenth-century Germany. This image participates in a visual culture in which women's intellectual and spiritual lives were becoming a subject of increasing interest. We might ask: who was the imagined audience for this print? Was this a private commission, or was it intended for a wider viewing public? Did it reflect new ideas about the education of women, or was it a more conventional statement about female piety? Without knowing more, it is hard to say. But by looking more closely at the social and institutional histories of the period, including the history of German printmaking, the history of education, and the history of gender, we can come to a more complete understanding of this beguiling image. In the end, the meaning of this artwork is contingent on such social and institutional contexts.