Portret van de vrouw van Wilhelmus Johannes Steenhoff 1873 - 1932

Wilhelmus Johannes Steenhoff sketched this portrait of his wife with graphite, and you can almost feel the charcoal dust on your fingertips. It's like the drawing happened in a single breath, a quicksilver capturing of a moment. See how the lines aren't precious or overworked? They're searching, finding the form as they go. The area around her eye and brow feels particularly tender, smudged with the artist's thumb maybe, a real contrast with the sharper, more defined lines of her nose and mouth. It gives her gaze a dreamy, faraway quality. I'm reminded of Paula Modersohn-Becker's drawings, that same directness and intimacy. Artists, they're always in conversation, responding to each other across time, each mark a little echo of what came before. Ultimately, this drawing is so open and honest, less about likeness and more about feeling.