A Peasant Woman c. 1770

Samuel Hieronymus Grimm made this drawing of a peasant woman around 1770. It’s rendered in delicate washes of grey, capturing her form and clothing with a focus on texture and volume rather than intricate detail. Grimm was working in England at a time when ideas about class and the rural landscape were shifting. The picturesque movement was becoming fashionable, and there was a growing interest in the lives of ordinary people. This image, therefore, exists in relation to the social conditions of eighteenth-century England, where representations of the working class were increasingly common. As historians, we might ask what kind of source material could reveal more about the image. Studying estate records, clothing inventories, or even literature of the period could provide insights into the material culture and social hierarchies of the time, helping us better understand the cultural significance of this drawing.