Luise Scholderer mit Begleiterin auf dem Bahnsteig 1872

Curator: Here we have Otto Scholderer’s "Luise Scholderer with Companion on the Platform," a pencil drawing on paper, dating from 1872, currently held here at the Städel Museum. Editor: Right away, I feel this wistful sense of fleeting time, that moment of farewells. The almost ethereal quality of the pencil sketch adds to this feeling—it’s like a half-remembered dream. Curator: It's compelling to examine the historical context—the rise of railway travel and how it reshaped social interactions and the very experience of space and time. Train stations were hubs where societal norms were enacted. Who has access, or not? Think gender and class in 1872. Editor: Good point! This makes me think, I’m imagining the rustle of their skirts, the clatter of the train, all swirling together in this emotional soup. It’s amazing how much information is conveyed with such a delicate medium. I'm totally projecting right now! Curator: And is this ‘realism’? While superficially mirroring what the artist saw, it reflects very deliberate choices about framing a modern subject of its time. The drawing portrays Scholderer's sister. It’s part portrait and part genre painting. Consider the performativity of bourgeois social rituals played out in transit spaces. Editor: The sketch feels unfinished somehow. Is that on purpose? Are we meant to be lingering here on this railway platform along with them, about to take off in different directions ourselves? Curator: Maybe. The drawing gives voice to unspoken anxieties about departure and reunion in a rapidly changing world. Transportation was deeply entangled with socio-political and industrial structures. It could both shrink and widen society depending on who had access. Editor: I guess for me the beauty lies in its vulnerability. The fragility of human connections…captured with just a pencil and paper. Who knew a railway platform could hold so much emotion. I might shed a tear, actually. Curator: Ultimately, the image offers insight into the socio-economic transformations occurring through mobility. It shows women who belonged to the world in transit, women who moved but who remained controlled by a complex matrix. Editor: Mmh. Well, now that I see all of those layers, I may need to sit here on this bench a while longer, with the women in the image, and see where we’re headed next.