Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1926

Henk Henriët made this portrait of an unknown woman with pencil on paper, at an unknown date. What can we say about the social context in which this image was made? Henriët was a Dutch artist who died at a young age in the final days of the Second World War. Though undated, this portrait may well have been made in the inter-war years, the 1920s or 30s. It portrays a young woman with the bobbed hair that was fashionable in the ‘Roaring Twenties’, an era of fast-paced social change in western countries. The woman’s downcast eyes and plain clothing strike a note of solemnity which perhaps reflects the social and economic hardships experienced in the Netherlands during the interwar period. Like any work of art, this portrait is very much a product of its time. Art historians use a variety of methods to understand it better, from stylistic analysis to archival research, and can help us to see the social context of the image.