Ein Mann mit großem Hut, dem sich eine Frau anschmiegt, rechts eine sitzende Figur 

Curator: Right now, we’re standing in front of a work by Victor Müller called *Ein Mann mit großem Hut, dem sich eine Frau anschmiegt, rechts eine sitzende Figur*. It's held here at the Städel Museum. What's your initial take? Editor: Ethereal. Like a dream half-remembered. Or maybe a sketch left incomplete, hovering between potential and resolution. The lines, so faint...it’s like trying to grasp a fleeting feeling. Curator: Indeed. Müller captures something so ephemeral, even the title dances around pinning down exactly what’s happening. He employed pencil for this drawing on paper, focusing on figuration. Editor: The composition is quite interesting. There's the figure mentioned in the title, adorned with what looks like an outsized hat, and a woman nestling close. And then, set to the right, this more isolated figure. Semiotically speaking, their spatial relationships and relative isolations set up complex narrative possibilities. The use of line seems so very... careful. What do you sense it imparts, visually? Curator: For me, it suggests a psychological drama playing out. Perhaps of intimacy and isolation all happening at once. Müller teases at romanticism, hints, suggests... but never really tells. Does it spark curiosity about these people, these lives hinted at but never fully rendered? Or, speaking very informally...are they in love, disconnected or perhaps lost within themselves? Editor: Both, I think. Or all of the above, simultaneously. This might seem reductive, but the piece feels so inherently early modern—its lack of resolution, embrace of subjective perspective, interest in the play between the "real" and the "ideal"... Müller offers questions, visual gestures, and that, in itself, feels so modern. The almost casual strokes. How academic artists move so easily. Curator: And for you, the open-endedness of it, do you find that freeing? As though your imagination can fill in what's left unsaid? Editor: Precisely. Müller isn’t handing us a polished conclusion but rather an invitation. And maybe, that’s what makes this seemingly slight sketch so resonant. Curator: Beautifully put. For me, too, its incomplete quality is its biggest asset, and feels deeply...generous, artist-to-viewer.