Girl Wearing a Bonnet 1810

Curator: There's something so subtly haunting about this oil on canvas, completed around 1810 by Joshua Johnson. The artwork is titled, "Girl Wearing a Bonnet". Editor: Haunted is spot on. She's beautiful, but with that almost translucent skin and distant gaze... I keep wanting to offer her a blanket and a cup of tea. She's holding something in her hands that looks like a sealed letter. Do you think it signifies a longing for communication? Curator: It’s tempting to interpret it literally, as an indicator of her education or social standing. However, it is crucial to look into broader concepts. During this time, portraits often encoded social aspirations. This sealed message could be a metaphor for a life yet unwritten, of a girl entering womanhood within rigid societal expectations. She’s got an odd power of serenity in her stoicism, though. Editor: It’s that serenity, the held breath quality, that gives the artwork its pull. Even the red of her dress seems muted, almost bleeding into the background. And that bonnet—it frames her face, but also kind of traps it, don't you think? Like a delicate bird in a gilded cage? I think she is lovely. Curator: Bonnets in such portraits often symbolize modesty, virtue, and domesticity—cornerstones of ideal womanhood at the time. However, seeing the era where enslaved and freed Black people’s visual representations were often contentious and actively policed is crucial. It reminds us that representation has been an active project. Here, in an artwork made by one of America's first professional African-American painters, the careful choice of attire goes past superficial decorum. It can be seen as an insistence on social grace for his young subject. Editor: So, maybe not trapped, but intentionally presented. An assertion rather than a suppression. I’ll never look at a bonnet the same way again. I still think she's freezing. Curator: It's a layered look. Each viewing is bound to add its colors to this rich emotional symbolism. Editor: A poignant echo of a world we can barely grasp, viewed through the eyes of a girl with a secret sealed message in her hand. Thanks.