Giuseppe Castiglione, Le Salon Carré, 1861

“Occasionally, though, you’ll see young girls. For there are lots of young girls in the museums, girls from somewhere or other who have left homes that no longer hold on to anything; they find themselves in front of these tapestries and for a short while forget about themselves. (...) Then hurriedly they’d get out a sketchbook and begin to draw whatever presented itself: one of the flowers or a happy little animal. (...) Just keep drawing; that’s the main thing; because it’s for this they’d left home one day, rather stormily. They’re from good families. But whenever they lift their arm as they’re drawing you can see that their dress isn’t buttoned at the back, or, at least, not all the way. There are a few buttons they can’t reach. That’s because when the dress was made there was not yet any talk of their suddenly leaving home, alone. In families you always find there’s someone who sees to buttons like these. But here, dear God, who should waste their time doing that in such a big city? You’d need a friend; but friends are all in the same boat and what it comes down to is buttoning up each other’s dress. Which is ridiculous and reminds you of your family, and that’s what you don’t want.

Now and then while they’re drawing they can’t avoid thinking whether or not it might have been possible after all to remain at home. If one could only have been religious, devoted, in step with the rest. But it would look foolish to be trying to be the same as everyone else.”...[+]