Een gezelschap van acht lofzingende personen rondom een tafel 1798 - 1837

Ernst Willem Jan Bagelaar made this small drawing of eight people singing around a table sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. The scene is charged with religious feeling. Beams of divine light pour down upon the figures from angels in the clouds above. The image speaks to the religious culture of the Netherlands during that time, a culture shaped by both the traditions of the established church and by newer currents of religious enthusiasm. Although the Netherlands was a Protestant country, the visual language of this drawing owes something to Catholic art. To understand this work better, we might research the history of religious life in the Netherlands in this period, looking at hymn books and other devotional literature. Ultimately, the meaning of this drawing is bound up with the social and institutional contexts that shaped its creation.