Portret van een onbekende Engelse vrouw before 1912

Léon Lowenberg made this portrait of an unknown English woman, rendered in soft shades of grey. It's an etching, I think, a close cousin of painting. Imagine Lowenberg bent over a metal plate, scratching lines with a needle, building up the image bit by bit. It’s about mark-making, not unlike a painter's touch on canvas, but the process is different. He would be trying to capture not just her likeness, but her essence. I wonder what she was thinking about as she sat for Lowenberg. Her hat is amazing! I love how Lowenberg’s rendering suggests all those frills and folds. He’s probably thinking about other artists such as Whistler or maybe some of the French Impressionists like Berthe Morisot. Making art is like entering a conversation with everyone who has ever made art – and with everyone who ever will. We keep on responding to what has come before, each of us adding our own voice to the chorus.