Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1912

Henriëtte de Vries, a Dutch artist born in 1867, made this lithograph portrait of an unknown woman. De Vries worked at a time when printmaking was gaining recognition as a fine art in its own right, and she was actively involved in artist societies in the Netherlands. The image depicts a woman of a certain age, wearing a lace bonnet and spectacles, rendered with remarkable detail, likely from the late 19th or early 20th century. The composition adheres to conventional portraiture of the era. The sitter's clothing and demeanor suggest a middle-class background and a degree of social respectability. But what does it mean to portray someone unknown? As historians, our role is to investigate the social conditions that made this work possible. We might ask what kind of patronage or institutional support allowed De Vries to produce this work. Researching the archives of Dutch art societies might reveal more about the artistic context in which De Vries operated, shedding light on the shifting status of women artists and the evolution of printmaking as a medium.