Gezicht in profiel en een figuur met een bal c. 1894

Curator: This delicate watercolor and pencil drawing, "Gezicht in profiel en een figuur met een bal," or "Face in Profile and a Figure with a Ball," was created circa 1894 by Julie de Graag and is held in the Rijksmuseum collection. What are your initial thoughts on this work? Editor: It's fragmentary and intriguing. It feels like peering into an artist’s visual notebook—fleeting impressions, unresolved ideas. The color palette is so muted, a little melancholic. Curator: De Graag's use of watercolor on paper allows for these almost ethereal effects. Note how the facial profile is rendered with just a few minimal lines, the ball is lightly marked as a simple circle, and the washes of color create amorphous forms, almost dreamlike in their symbolism. It almost presents like memory—hazy edges of shapes coming through. Editor: Absolutely. And isn't it interesting that we perceive these incomplete sketches as deeply evocative? There's a dialogue happening here with the history of portraiture itself, isn't there? Rejecting notions of fixed identity. These fragments could represent fleeting moments of being, which aligns with feminist ideas about selfhood, always evolving in context. Curator: It also calls into question what is of importance, where the figure with the ball in the bottom right corner contrasts with the face which holds no features, yet holds more importance to us through the title of the drawing. The ambiguity invites the viewer to complete the narrative, assigning their own personal resonance to the images, their relationship to childhood, and their engagement in society as depicted. Editor: The limited palette evokes certain turn-of-the-century moods of art that capture a particular moment in the trajectory of European social change. In these in-between sketches there's such space to consider those who were underrepresented at this point. Curator: What stands out to me is how the lack of detail creates a sense of timelessness. Though created in 1894, the themes of identity and fragmented representation feel incredibly relevant to contemporary conversations. Editor: I agree. It reminds us that artistic exploration and questioning never truly cease. The simplicity holds incredible complexity and depth.