Getty Museum

[Peasant Woman, Westerwald (Bäuerin aus dem Westerwald)]

Date

1912

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

German

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> August Sander had planned to preface his life's work, the proposed “Citizens of the Twentieth Century,” with a “portfolio of archetypes"(*Stammappe*) devoted to the peasant as the prototypical building block of human society. “The models for the scheme,” he recalled in 1954 in the introduction to the portfolio, “arose from the small area around my birthplace in the Westerwald. People whose habits I had known from my youth seemed, by virtue of their strong connection with nature, ideally suited to the realization of my idea. . . . I classified all the types I encountered in relation to one basic type, who had all the characteristics of mankind in general.” > > After opening his portrait studio in Cologne-Lindenthal in 1910, Sander often traveled to the small villages and farming communities of the Westerwald in search of new clients. This picture of a farmer's widow from the village of Ottershagen may have been commissioned by her family. The subject is seen seated in an armchair against a dark backdrop holding a book, possibly a Bible. She doesn't reciprocate the viewer's gaze, instead focusing inward as if in solemn contemplation. Sander registers her black garments with archaeological precision; her aged face is framed by the monumental folds of the shawl. In the twelve photographs of peasant men, women, and families that formed the Portfolio of Archetypes, she appears as “The Earthbound Woman,” represented not in her historical dimension, but in her metaphorical role as the mother of German civilization. > > Of the 1,200 photographs by Sander in the Getty Museum’s collection about 500 portraits and landscapes were taken by the photographer in the Westerwald. (See other images from the Portfolio of Archetypes: [84.XM.126.282](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/34437/august-sander-shepherd-hirte-german-1913/), [84.XM.126.232](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/34392/august-sander-farmer-westerwald-bauer-westerwald-german-1910/), [84.XM.126.115](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/34276/august-sander-farmer-westerwald-westerwalder-bauer-german-about-1925/), and [85.XM.258.75](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/53697/august-sander-three-generations-of-a-farming-family-westerwald-german-1912/)) > > For more information about “Citizens of the Twentieth Century,” see [84.XM.126.282](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/34437/august-sander-shepherd-hirte-german-1913/). > > Adapted from *August Sander*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Claudia Bohn-Spector (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000), 12. ©2000, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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