Portret van Aleida Schaap 1835 - 1888

Jozef Israëls created this etching, *Portret van Aleida Schaap*, in the Netherlands, sometime in the 19th century. It depicts a young woman in profile, rendered with delicate lines. Israëls was a key figure in the Hague School, a group of Dutch realist painters who turned away from the grand history painting favored by the art academies. Instead, they focused on everyday life, particularly the lives of the working class and rural poor. This etching, while a portrait, reflects that sensibility, presenting its sitter without idealization. Aleida Schaap’s identity and social standing would have been legible to Israëls' contemporary audience. Details of her dress and hairstyle, along with the overall tone of the image, would have signaled her place in Dutch society. As art historians, we can look to sources, such as period fashion plates, social histories, and even literature, to reconstruct the cultural context of this image, to understand both what Israëls wanted to convey and how his viewers would have understood it.