Zittende jonge vrouw met een sjaal om de schouders 

Thérèse Schwartze made this drawing of a seated young woman with a shawl using what appears to be graphite on paper. Schwartze was one of the few women artists of the time to gain international recognition and was known for her portraits of Amsterdam’s elite. But in this drawing, she turns her attention to a woman whose class position is less clear. The subject's gaze is averted downwards. She seems to be lost in thought. The soft rendering of the graphite suggests a fleeting, intimate moment. Schwartze, who came from a family of artists, was deeply aware of the gaze, of who was looking at whom and why, and who was afforded the privilege of being seen. Perhaps in this drawing, Schwartze questions traditional power dynamics of portraiture by focusing on the woman’s interiority rather than her social status.