Gesluierde vrouw met lelie 1876 - 1926

Carlos Schwabe made this delicate drawing of a veiled woman with a lily with graphite on paper. The approach to mark-making feels exploratory and the palette is reduced to subtle, ghostly greys. It’s a reminder that artmaking is a process, a kind of thinking through doing. The drawing has such a light touch. The pencil work is really about the faintest of lines to create a whole world. You can almost feel the give of the paper, the soft resistance as the graphite is laid down. Look at how the veil drapes, it is so sheer. It gives the figure a sense of the ethereal, as though she might just float away. And that lily she’s holding; it's like she’s cradling a secret, or a fragile hope. This connects to similar themes in the work of symbolist painters like Fernand Khnopff and Gustav Moreau, artists exploring similar territories of dreams, secrets, and hidden meanings. It reminds us that art is just a big, ongoing conversation, echoing and answering across time.