Portret van een vrouw met bril 1879 - 1883

This photograph, "Portret van een vrouw met bril" or "Portrait of a Woman with Glasses" was made by Adolphe Zimmermans, an artist active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It presents a woman in an oval frame, gazing directly at us, her spectacles suggesting intellect and perhaps subverting conventional ideals of feminine beauty. The woman's dark, high-necked dress and simple hairstyle speak to the period's more constrained gender roles, yet her direct gaze challenges the demure passivity often expected of women in portraiture. Zimmermans, working within a rapidly changing world, seems to capture a tension between tradition and modernity. The photograph's intimate scale invites a personal connection. It makes you wonder about the sitter's life and aspirations, and to consider the complex negotiation of identity within the social structures of her time. It encourages a reflection on the evolving representation of women and intellect, then and now.