At her Toilette 

Curator: Theodore Chasseriau's painting "At her Toilette"...there's a casual, unhurried air about it, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Definitely. The painting exudes a warmth and an intimacy, almost voyeuristic in a gentle, old master's way. It feels… lived in. The browns and the blues blending softly are grounding; she could be anyone and anywhere, which has me immediately considering what she produces as someone living, and working...and resting. Curator: That's a beautiful take! Chasseriau’s a Romantic through and through, fascinated by light, mood, and the inner lives of his subjects. It's like we’ve caught her in a private moment, slipping on her stocking...maybe for some unknown pleasure. Editor: Exactly! We get such texture here too—the impasto technique really comes to the fore when we focus on the draped fabric the woman is seated on, it feels like something she's likely created as an artisan herself and benefits directly from. I'm drawn to the means by which that tactility comes into being, as if all its stitched labour somehow seeps into her self. Curator: I love that— the relationship between lived labor and luxurious material is always interesting, even when not overt. And did you notice how that string of red is pulling down? It has a painterly life all of its own in her otherwise muted boudoir, even if the painting does focus almost solely on the woman’s liminal moments as a beautiful mystery. Editor: Mysteries indeed are what drive luxury, which so heavily dictates consumption today and especially throughout this woman's context and life experience. Curator: A beautiful paradox, really. But is this artful moment what our lady is really hoping for as a way of getting ahead and simply getting by? Editor: It always returns back to labor...I'm fixated. This feels like a potent example of class awareness seeping in even to supposedly idyllic settings, and in ways the original artists never intended, it's about all we are as makers that persists... Curator: So true, and perhaps Chasseriau, knowingly or not, shows a truth he maybe didn’t even fully see!