That is Cupid perched on the wall behind her, blowing bubbles. PHOTO BY EDUARDO CALDERON / COURTESY OF FRYE ART MUSEUM
I had never seen a soap bubble in an old painting before. I naively and unthinkingly believed that the thin film of water that floats on air was an occurrence that came into being relatively recently—an invention that debuted around the time of microwaves or automatic juicers.
That belief popped when I saw German artist Gabriel von Max’s 1881 Seifenblasen (Soap Bubbles), which is currently hanging at the Frye Art Museum as part of the show Unsettling Femininity: Selections from the Frye Art Museum Collection. Duh. Of course bubbles have always been a thing.
