Woman with Bustle 

Jean-Louis Forain sketched 'Woman with Bustle' using delicate strokes of pen and brown ink on paper. The composition features a seated woman, her bustle dramatically rendered, occupying the right half of the paper, balanced by empty space to the left. Forain's sketch destabilizes traditional portraiture by focusing more on the artifice of fashion than the individual. The bustle, a structure designed to exaggerate the female form, takes center stage, questioning conventional representations of beauty. The open space surrounding the figure emphasizes her isolation and perhaps the artificiality of her constructed appearance. Note the stark contrast between the detailed rendering of the woman’s attire and the almost absent facial features. This formal quality suggests that the artist is less interested in portraying the woman's identity than in examining the social constructs and performances of femininity during his time. The drawing, therefore, serves as a semiotic study of fashion and its role in shaping societal perceptions.