Albert Anker

There are a total of three versions of this motif. The present one was submitted by Albert Anker to the Paris Salon in 1866, for which he received the gold medal, the highest honor. It depicts two small girls studiously bending over a piece of paper on which one of the girls is writing with a quill and ink. Both wear prettily patterned dresses and aprons. Their faces full of concentration are illuminated from the front, while the background recedes into darkness, hampering any conclusions about their location. When Anker was working on the painting, the right to a school education for girls in Bern had only been enshrined in the canton’s constitution for thirty years and remained controversial. This would explain why the wood engraving of the first version, produced by the company Buri & Jeker for the magazine Die Illustrierte Schweiz (July 29, 1871, p. 56), was entitled The Little Bluestockings. From the middle of the 18^th century in Europe, “blue stocking” was a derogatory term for intellectually educated women who – it was feared – were neglecting their feminine qualities for the sake of education. During the 19^th and well into the 20^th century, such misleading portrayals of educated females as opinionated, argumentative, intellectual “(wo)men” were being circulated, including ones by Honoré Daumier.