Kamer met toilettafel 1752 - 1794

Pierre Gabriel Berthault created this print of a dressing room, or 'cabinet de toilette' as they were known, during the late 18th or early 19th century in France. Considered as a space, the dressing room was a place for the elite to prepare and present themselves to the world. But it also served as a backdrop for intimate moments of reflection. The architecture, with its neoclassical motifs, suggests a lifestyle of refined taste and leisure. Yet, beyond aesthetics, these rooms were spaces of carefully constructed identities. In this print, Berthault captures a moment of transition. The meticulous detail he employs invites us to imagine the lives and rituals enacted within these walls. Did it foster empowerment, or did it reinforce the constraints of class and gender? The artist leaves us to contemplate the complex interplay between private identity and public presentation that such spaces embodied.