Interior with Man and Woman in Eighteenth-Century Dress n.d.

Rodolphe Bresdin made this pen lithograph, "Interior with Man and Woman in Eighteenth-Century Dress" in nineteenth-century France, but it is not dated. It portrays a scene set in the 1700s, a time when the aristocracy enjoyed prominence in social and cultural life. The artist is interested in the ways that gender and class play out in the world of art. We can see here a man in a doorway and a woman seated at an easel in what appears to be her studio. The man’s authoritative gesture and the woman's absorption in her work seem to indicate something about the roles that men and women were expected to play at the time. The male portrait on the wall and the dress of the figures provide additional cues about the sitters' social standing. Art historians use a variety of sources to understand images like this. These include historical records, letters, and other documents that can tell us about the lives of the people who created and consumed art. In understanding this artwork, we can learn something about the gendered art world of nineteenth-century France.