A Graceful Young Girl in Traditional Costume with a Hat 

Curator: Franz von Defregger offers us "A Graceful Young Girl in Traditional Costume with a Hat." Painted with oil, it’s a window into 19th-century genre painting with romantic overtones. What do you think at first sight? Editor: There's a soft light on the girl's face, which gives the portrait a lovely, intimate feel, but the clothing feels somewhat theatrical, doesn't it? Like it is a costume of some kind? Curator: Indeed. Consider that Defregger made many paintings representing rural, often idealized, scenes of life and tradition. How does the depiction of the young girl reflect on questions about the representation of femininity? Is there a certain male gaze inherent in the painting of women and girls? Editor: Well, the smoothness of the application makes me wonder. I imagine Defregger had a studio practice involving specific layering techniques. Do we know anything about his apprenticeship and use of particular pigments or supports to get such effects of softness? Curator: Defregger trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where the techniques of the Old Masters were central to the training. Also crucial were discussions around nationalism and regional identity, of course, given Germany's recent unification at the time. His work certainly plays with tropes of rural virtue. It is important to consider the possible nationalist ideas that informed even seemingly "innocent" genre paintings like this one. Editor: Absolutely. Looking closely, the weave of the cloth in her blouse is suggested with simple strokes, but it successfully conveys a texture. It is such work with details and textures that would speak to issues around production, class, and value in the art market. Curator: The gaze that the girl directs towards us also calls into question our position as the viewers. Are we admiring the ideal of purity, or are we questioning what these ideals mask about the realities of women's lives? I cannot help but think that our contemporary ideas about identity politics shed new light on his artworks. Editor: I find it interesting that he chose to paint her in these clothes at all and think about where those materials came from and who was producing these goods. Thanks to the texture of the brushwork, the surface tells us that Defregger was highly skilled with his material! Curator: Thinking about how social histories intersect in what looks, at first, like just a portrait of a girl makes me rethink many art objects. Editor: For me, thinking about the girl in the portrait and how it involved a particular form of skilled labor by the artist complicates any simple, idealised reading.