Marie Therese Gräfin Meerfeld, geb. Gräfin Dietrichstein 1790

Curator: Look at that sky! It's like she's floating in a dream, so delicate, so soft. Editor: I agree, there is definitely an otherworldly aspect here. We're looking at a portrait of Marie Therese Gräfin Meerfeld, painted in 1790 by Angelica Kauffmann. It is, of course, an oil on canvas. Curator: Kauffman just had a way of capturing something ephemeral, didn’t she? The way she handles light – almost whispers it onto the canvas. And that red shawl against the sky is pretty wonderful, too. It just makes me want to float away myself. Editor: Shawls like that red one would have been pretty popular; there’s something fascinating about how textiles circulated and how we tend to view clothing separately from fine art—when clearly there’s plenty of overlap here. Let’s not forget this image conveys status through attire, though that status comes, partly, from the labor of making this painting, the milling of paints and production of cloth... Curator: Absolutely, the luxury is there. But it is also in the way the Gräfin looks at you. It is that sort of gentle, almost melancholy, knowing expression. What secrets is she keeping, I wonder? Editor: Perhaps just the secrets of her class! Academic art like this tells us just as much about production, reception, and display, of both bodies and materials, as it does about interiority. Kauffmann and Gräfin Meerfeld were creating more than just an image, it was an industry as well! Curator: That's interesting, the layers of artistry, labor, and luxury. In the end, it feels deeply intimate. She feels like a friend I could tell all my secrets to and trust everything would be safe. It’s a strange, yet lovely feeling. Editor: I hadn't quite thought of it that way, but now I find myself imagining all of the lives that converged to give us this painting. I suspect, in that meeting of energies and actions, is precisely where her unique sort of magic truly lies.