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(Archive) Portret van een onbekende vrouw

Portrait of an unknown woman, a visual and textual archive of unknown female portraits.

This project was part of DDW 2021
Beeldmerk — © Studio Anouk Stoffels

‘Portrait of an unknown woman’, a common title in museums when they want to flaunt with a painting featuring a mysterious female. Often they are studies of painters, muses, forbidden or unknown lovers.

How history meets fashion

Fascinated by this recurring title Anouk Stoffels wants to give these women in these portraits, in collaboration with other women, an identity, new revaluation and a platform.

The women can often be identified by details in the painting and the clothing they wear. Clothing tells the story, as do the white collars that are often prominent in a portrait. This fashion statement linked to current modernity has provided a conceptual documentation.