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“Through the Looking-Glass” by Louise Jopling (English) – Oil paint on canvas / 1875 – Tate Britain (London, England) #WomenInArt #LouiseJopling #Jopling #TateBritain #TateMuseum #VictorianArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #art #artText #arte #BlueskyArt #mirror #EnglishArtist #SelfPortrait
Painted when British artist Louise Jopling was an ambitious young professional—and pregnant with her son Lindsay, this self-portrait insists on seeing her as a working artist rather than a decorative sitter. She stages herself “through the looking-glass,” riffing on Lewis Carroll’s recent novel to suggest a passage between private and public identities as a woman who sits in her studio and the public painter whose image will hang in exhibitions. She depicts herself as a light-skinned woman artist sitting as she paints on an easel with her body turned slightly to the side so her gaze meets ours in a calm, steady look. She wears a pale blue dress with ruffled trim, a high white collar, and a matching blue-and-white cap perched over dark hair. A spray of yellow and russet flowers hangs at her chest, echoed by warm tones in her cheeks. Jopling balances a wooden palette loaded with bright dabs of paint on her lap, a fan of brushes gathered in her right hand as she works at an unseen canvas. We realize we are looking into a tall, dark-framed mirror. Behind her, a red-brown studio wall, a painted folding screen crowded with tiny figures, a yellow chest of drawers, a draped chair, and the vertical bar of her easel describe a lived-in, professional studio space. Jopling sent this picture to the Society of Lady Artists in 1875, while her companion canvas "A Modern Cinderella" appeared at the Royal Academy, evidence of her determination to claim space in institutions that still excluded women from membership. The folding screen, patterned textiles, and fashionable blue dress signal her place in cosmopolitan Victorian culture, yet the direct gaze, firm posture, and active hands quietly challenge assumptions about women’s roles. Shown in "Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520–1920," the painting restores Jopling to the story of British art as a pioneer who built an art school for women and helped future generations step through the glass of professional exclusion.
December 10, 2025 at 6:37 PM