Le Caprice, 20 août 1849, No. 514 1849

Curator: We're looking at "Le Caprice, 20 août 1849, No. 514", a watercolor by Félicie Schneider, created in 1849. Editor: It has such a delicate, wistful feeling. The colors are muted, almost pastel, giving it a dreamlike quality. Are those ladies gossiping? Curator: It’s fascinating how Schneider captured a specific moment in time through this medium. You see the romanticized portrayal of women from that era, in a way it demonstrates a form of labor that defined a lady. Their gowns—clearly elaborate, hand-stitched and indicating a certain social standing. And the fact this watercolor, a fairly accessible medium, made these fashion ideals consumable by a broader audience. Editor: The details on those dresses are incredible. But look how they're presented within a setting that feels... manufactured. That's no wild garden, that is arranged flora intended as backdrop for leisurely consumption. Curator: Precisely! It reflects the carefully curated image of bourgeois life and the role women were expected to play. Watercolors became increasingly popular among women artists and hobbyists during that period, as were images showing this sort of fashionable leisurely environment. These illustrations, published and distributed, also perpetuated ideals and set precedents for feminine roles. Editor: I'm drawn to how those patterns dictate taste and reinforce a particular type of consumerism within that culture. I also can’t ignore that each dress, even just a simple sketch, took hours and hours to create. Labor that would primarily be that of women or lower class tailors. Curator: It reveals so much about production of not only the work of art, but garments and social ideals too! It shows how images shape cultural understanding. These portraits played an important role in creating social identities and power structures that we are still dissecting today. Editor: And a delicate dance with watercolor to document, perhaps unintentionally, the rigidness of those structures. Food for thought! Curator: It definitely prompts you to look beyond the image itself, right? Think about these kinds of production.