Female Figure Pulling Aside Curtain n.d.

This is William Etty’s delicate drawing in pen and brown ink, depicting a female figure pulling aside a curtain. The act of unveiling is a powerful one, loaded with historical weight. Consider the ‘veil of Veronica’, where the cloth bears the imprint of Christ’s face. Or Salome, whose dance leads to the unveiling, the revealing, of John the Baptist’s head. The curtain, the veil, it is a liminal space – what is concealed, what is revealed. In antiquity, the revelation of sacred images was a moment of intense spiritual significance. This act touches something deep within us, a primal fascination with what is hidden, what is secret. The desire to know, to see, drives us. The lifting of the veil—we are drawn to it, generation upon generation. This tension between concealment and revelation speaks to a profound, even subconscious, human desire for understanding.