Sketches of a Woman in a Corseted Gown, a Castle, and a Horse's Head 1785 - 1790

Curator: Here we have a sketch from around 1785-1790, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s titled "Sketches of a Woman in a Corseted Gown, a Castle, and a Horse's Head." Editor: Immediately, there's this beautiful ethereality. It's like stumbling upon someone's fleeting dream, penciled onto a page barely tethered to reality. What medium did the artist employ? Curator: Pencil, most effectively deployed in these studies, a triptych of forms almost. Note how the artist uses line weight and shading to delineate volume and texture. Semiotically, we're invited to consider the interplay of power, beauty, and perhaps even confinement embodied in the represented figures. Editor: Confinement, yes! That gown…it's like a gilded cage. The horse's head feels like a yearning for wildness. Tell me more about the composition; there are multiple foci, aren't there? Curator: Precisely. The composition decenters the traditional hierarchy of portraiture. We observe three distinct subjects presented on the page. On the left, a quick sketch of a fashionable woman of the late 18th century; central a view of what is possibly a fortress; and on the right, the head of a horse. These juxtapositions invite our inquiry into their symbolic relationships. Editor: It also feels unfinished. Raw. Like a backstage pass to the creative process. Almost rebellious for its time. So untamed. Curator: Perhaps that reflects shifts in artistic expression emerging towards the Romantic period and its emphasis on imagination and individuality. Even a subtle detail—the barely-there inscription along the top border—functions almost as an additional element within this layered arrangement. Editor: A wonderful, fractured vignette into a lost world. It’s exciting and refreshing to imagine that artists have struggled, played, and wondered, just as we all still do. Curator: Yes, and viewed through a Formalist lens, it exemplifies a crucial point about sketches: their unique ability to foreground structure and concept over narrative or surface.