Ontwerp voor een advertentie van Het Modehuis te Soest 1884 - 1952

Reinier Willem Petrus de Vries sketched this advert for ‘Het Modehuis te Soest’ with pencil on paper. The lines are so delicate, like whispers on the page. I imagine de Vries with his pencil, carefully constructing this image, line by line. It’s an advert, so the purpose is practical, but the image he’s created has its own strange beauty. The woman's face is so poised, so elegant, with a hint of melancholy in her eyes. And the row of raindrop shapes around her neckline, are they stylised droplets, or inverted teardrops? It feels like de Vries had a moment of creativity beyond the commercial goal. It reminds me a little of some of those early 20th-century illustrators like Aubrey Beardsley, who managed to inject such personality into their work. There's a real exchange happening between artists across time, each finding inspiration in the other’s marks. It reminds us that even in the most functional art, there's always room for a flash of individual expression.