oil on canvas · 1873 · attr. l. ostera
she is turned three-quarters from us, watching something we cannot see. what she sees is the same flat field of light that a window always offers a painting: a pale rectangle, a suggestion of weather. she has been watching it for a hundred and fifty winters.
attributed to ostera, though the dress is wrong for ostera and the brass latch is wrong for the year. one of the curators believes the figure was painted by a student over an unfinished landscape. the warm rim along her shoulder belongs to a different painting, looking through.
field-note visitors are advised not to stand directly behind the work. the room is not haunted; the painting simply prefers to be approached from one side.