Portret van een vrouw 1860 - 1900

This photograph by Jacques-Eugène Feyen captures a woman adorned in the fashion of her time. A notable feature is her headwear, a bonnet with elaborate curls. The bonnet—a symbol of domesticity and modesty—can be traced back through centuries of European fashion. Consider how earlier veiled figures, like those in Renaissance paintings, gradually evolved into the bonneted women of the 19th century. What was once a religious symbol of purity becomes a social signifier of respectability. Such shifts reflect how collective memory unconsciously reshapes symbols. The act of covering the head, whether in a nun’s habit or a bourgeois woman’s bonnet, speaks to deep-seated notions of womanhood. Notice how her clasped hands project contained emotion, embodying the psychological tension between social expectation and individual expression. Ultimately, the image embodies the cyclical nature of symbols, reinventing themselves across time.