Portrait of a Lady from the van de Poll Family, possibly Anna Maria Dedel, Wife of Jan van de Poll 1762

This is a portrait, likely of Anna Maria Dedel, painted by Guillaume de Spinny sometime in the mid-18th century. Like all paintings, it begins with the material support: in this case, a canvas stretched over a wooden frame. But it’s the paint itself that really tells the story. Oil paint – pigment suspended in linseed oil – allowed for extremely subtle gradations of color. Just look at the folds of the sitter's blue dress. The labor involved is not just de Spinny’s. The dress itself would have taken many hours to make, with each embroidered flourish a testament to skilled handwork. And the pearls around her neck? These speak to global trade, to the exploitation of natural resources, and to the vast differences in wealth that characterized this period. So, while this may seem simply like a portrait of a wealthy lady, it's also a record of a whole system of making and consumption, which is inextricably linked to issues of labor, politics, and class.