Portret van een meisje met hoed before 1883

Gerard Jan Bos created this etching of a girl with a hat. Bos, who lived between 1860 and 1943, was working in a time when artists were reckoning with tradition, and also new ways to think about identity and representation. The girl in the image is anonymous, so her story is obscured to us. What can be said is that she wears a large hat, which could indicate a certain socio-economic status. The work provides a glimpse into the world of childhood and representation at the turn of the century, a time when childhood was being newly conceptualized and images of children were becoming increasingly common in art and media. Through Bos's delicate rendering, we are invited to contemplate the complexities of identity and representation in a rapidly changing world.