Snuffer 1935 - 1942

Hester Duany made this drawing of a snuffer sometime in the early to mid twentieth century. It’s such a curious drawing! I love how it shows the artist's process, like she's working out how to see. The snuffer itself is rendered with a delicate touch, using a muted palette and fine brushstrokes to capture the metallic sheen. But look closer, and you can see another snuffer in the background, barely sketched out in pencil, a ghostly echo of the finished object. It's like Duany is showing us the different layers of perception, the way we move from vague impressions to concrete forms, that tension between what's visible and what's just a possibility. It reminds me a little of the way Morandi would set up a similar group of bottles and jugs time and time again, each time trying to capture something a little bit different, and maybe that's what Duany is doing here.