Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1866 - 1893

Adolph Meister captured this carte-de-visite portrait of an unknown woman, rendered in sepia tones, in the late nineteenth century. At first glance, her attire, notably the ribbon around her neck fastened with a cross, hints at the conventional modesty of the era. Yet, these symbols are not static. The ribbon, reminiscent of earlier forms of neckwear signifying rank, has evolved into a marker of personal expression. And the cross, while a Christian emblem, is, in essence, a convergence—a visual nexus—of the earthly and the divine, a concept echoed across diverse cultures from the Celtic cross to the Egyptian ankh. Consider the gaze of the sitter. There is an intensity that defies mere societal expectations. In earlier Renaissance portraits, a similar gaze was deployed to capture the sitter’s inner virtue. Here, it evokes a powerful subconscious connection, prompting us to reflect on the cyclical recurrence of symbols and their ever-shifting meanings.