Watch Fob with Human Hair Chain c. 1936

Kathryn Uhl made this rendering of a watch fob with human hair chain on paper sometime between 1870 and 1910. It’s carefully drawn, like a diagram. I’m drawn to the understated color palette. It's mostly browns and golds with very little contrast. This gives the object a sense of solidity and weight. It's intriguing to me that Uhl chose to depict a material object, a watch fob, in such a precise way. The lines are clean and the shading is subtle, but the texture of the woven hair is still evident. Look closely at the way the hair is rendered - see how each strand is carefully placed to create a sense of depth and dimension? There's a kind of quiet reverence in the way Uhl has approached the subject. Uhl's work reminds me a bit of the detailed botanical illustrations of someone like Maria Merian, or maybe even some of the meticulous still lifes of Giorgio Morandi, artists for whom the act of looking closely seems to be almost devotional.