Study of a Girl Sitting in a Chair c. 1855

Editor: This is Henry Wallis's "Study of a Girl Sitting in a Chair" from the Tate Collections. It's a pencil sketch, and I'm struck by how it captures a feeling of quiet melancholy. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The sketch invites us to consider the social position of women in Wallis’s time. The girl's downcast gaze, her posture… do they speak to a lack of agency, perhaps even a societal pressure for women to be demure and submissive? Editor: That's a really interesting point! I hadn't thought about it that way. Curator: Consider also the unfinished nature of the sketch. Does that suggest a life, a potential, left incomplete or unrealized due to societal constraints? The chair itself, is it a throne or a trap? Editor: Wow, that gives me a lot to think about. Thanks! Curator: Indeed, it's through these dialogues that we can really engage with the art and its historical context.