Artheon MuseumArtheonMuseum
Italy by Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852–1934)

Medium

platinum print mounted to Japanese paper

Dimensions

image: 18.6 × 12 cm · mounted: 30 × 21.1 cm

Classification

Photograph

Department

Photography

Museum

Cleveland Museum of Art

Credit

Gift of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg

Accession Number

2022.116

Tags

female

About this artwork

Italy provides insight into Käsebier’s earliest artistic productions. The woman’s pose and central placement emphasize the picture’s formalism and careful construction. Her rigid vertical posture echoes the trees in the background. Soft focus, a device borrowed from Pictorialist photography, frustrates a clear view of her features, suggesting that the image is neither portrait nor snapshot but a symbolic statement about womanhood and its association with nature.

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