Naaktmodel bekijkt prenten 1897

Henri Boutet created this sketch, “Naaktmodel bekijkt prenten” which translated means ‘Nude Model Viewing Prints.’ In it, a woman is surrounded by the tools and results of artistic creation: the easel, the chair, and the prints she is examining. The act of artistic self-reflection, and the naked form are both, since antiquity, emblems of truth. This motif of female self-reflection echoes through time, from ancient myths of goddesses gazing upon their reflections in sacred springs, to countless Renaissance paintings of Venus at her mirror. Each incarnation is a quest for truth and beauty. The theme shifts and evolves, it persists. As it reappears in different cultural guises, it invites us to ponder how artists continually seek to portray the very essence of human experience, both intimate and profound.