Half-Length Profile Portrait of a Woman Facing Left n.d.

George Romney sketched this portrait of a woman, her face turned in profile, using sanguine chalk. Highlighting her elevated status, she wears an elaborate feathered headdress. Such adornments are not new. Long before Romney put chalk to paper, feathered headdresses carried symbolic weight in cultures across the globe. Ancient Egyptians associated feathers with Ma'at, the embodiment of truth and cosmic order, often depicted with a single feather atop her head. Consider how this symbol migrates: from divine headdresses in pharaonic Egypt to aristocratic fashion in 18th-century England. The feather itself, light and airy, seems to promise elevation, aspiration, perhaps even a touch of the divine. Yet, in Romney’s time, it also speaks to the wearer's social standing, a marker of wealth and leisure. The subconscious allure of the feather persists; its promise of transformation and transcendence woven into its very form. The image, incomplete as it is, stirs something within us – a connection to epochs where adornment spoke volumes. It beckons us to trace the migrations of symbols and to ponder their enduring power.