Room with a View 1895

Julius Leblanc Stewart painted ‘Room with a View’ in oil on canvas, showing us a woman gazing out of a window. This is likely a scene of bourgeois domesticity from France in the late nineteenth century. Stewart depicts a well-to-do woman in a pink dress, looking out at the rooftops of the city, perhaps Paris, with its grand buildings and busy skies. There are cultural clues in the setting: the dark drapes, the corner of a suit of armor, and the basket of sewing, all suggestive of a comfortable existence. It also comments on the social structures of its time. The woman seems pensive, even melancholic. Is she dreaming of something beyond the walls of her room? Is Stewart inviting us to reflect on the limited roles available to women in this era? To understand Stewart's painting more fully, we might research the history of fashion, the decorative arts, and the development of urban life.