Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1921

Willem Adrianus Grondhout made this etching of an unknown woman, it's a small thing, only about 20cm high. The line work has this nervous energy, like he's trying to capture a fleeting thought. You can really see the process, the way the lines build up to create form. It's all in shades of brown, sepia tones, but there's a lot of variation in the density of the marks. Look at the way he's described the hair, it's almost scribbled, but somehow it reads as a mass of soft, dark curls. Then, the lines around her neck and shoulder are much more delicate and precise. There’s a real contrast between those areas that are worked really intensely, and the more open, sketchy parts. It reminds me a little of Whistler’s etchings, but with a bit more rawness, more immediacy. Ultimately, this feels like a study, an attempt to capture something real, rather than create a finished product. And in that sense, it’s a perfect example of how art can embrace the unfinished, the ambiguous, and still be incredibly compelling.