‘Portrait of an unknown woman’ shows a visual and textual archive of in museums exhibited female portraits who are classified as ‘Jane Doe’.

‘Portrait of an unknown woman’: a common title in museums when they want to flaunt with a painting featuring a mysterious female. The depicted women in the portraits are often studies of painters, muses, forbidden or unknown mistresses. When these paintings are exhibited, they are often accompanied with a very brief information about the clothing, jewelry and possible descent.
This is a common phenomenon when it comes to female portraits displayed in museums or stored in museum depots.

Fascinated by this recurring title Anouk Stoffels wants to give these unknown women, in collaboration with other women, an identity, new revaluation and a platform. All this by developing an online archiving, visual directory and exposition to document all the anonymous and nameless women in Dutch museums. In short, a platform for women within the cultural heritage, in the broadest sense of the word.

To support the visual aspect of ‘Portrait of an unknown woman’ various female authors will provide textual stories and essays. Talent development and knowledge exchange are two important pillars in this project.

Here, Van Gogh was practising painting strong contrasts between light and dark, using only a few colours – ochre for hands and face and green for background and clothing.

The woman is wearing a ‘falie’ or mourning shawl. If you look carefully, you can just spot a white bonnet peeping out from under it. In the spring and summer of 1885, Van Gogh drew and painted other women wearing shawls over their heads in this way. They were worn at funerals or when in mourning.

SOURCE Van Gogh Museum, Rights & Reproduction Afdeling, Fotostudio VGM

Visit the new exhibition ‘Wat is het verhaal achter de aardappeleters?’