Valkyrie (Costume Study for Bayreuth) Head with Helmet c. 1894 - 1896

Hans Thoma made this costume study for Valkyrie with pencil and white heightening on paper. It’s part of a larger project for Bayreuth, Richard Wagner’s opera house, which became a hallowed ground for a particularly German style of theatrical production. The drawing shows a figure in profile, wearing a helmet and breastplate, and it's interesting to consider the materials implied here. Thoma gives the helmet a great deal of attention, describing its intricate ornamentation with considerable care. It’s clearly meant to represent metal. But imagine what it would take to actually produce a helmet like this, including the labor of the metalworker, the design process, the ultimate weight of the object, and the way it would move and sound on stage. Opera is all about illusion, of course, but one has to wonder what it meant, even then, to represent craftsmanship in this indirect way. Paying attention to materials and making allows us to consider the social context of this image, and its connection to histories of labor and production.