Dames voor de etalage van galerie Ed. Sagot 1898

George Alfred Bottini made this print of fashionable women looking in the window of Ed. Sagot’s gallery. We don’t know exactly when, but it was likely in the 1890s in Paris. This image encapsulates the Belle Époque, when Paris was a vibrant centre for art and culture. The gallery in the image, Ed. Sagot, played a key role in promoting avant-garde printmaking at the time. Here, we see well-dressed women acting as consumers, which was a new role for women in those days. The image captures a moment of cultural shift, with women becoming more prominent in public life. We might investigate the history of Ed. Sagot’s gallery and its role in promoting new art forms, and explore how this art contributed to the development of modernism. Or we could delve deeper into the changing roles of women in French society at the turn of the century, looking at historical documents and social commentary.