Brief aan August Allebé Possibly 1907

This letter to August Allebé, created in Amsterdam on April 16, 1907, seems so official, so bureaucratic...yet so human! I imagine the committee members gathered around a table, quills scratching across paper, carefully choosing their words. They’re inviting Allebé, a former director of the Rijksakademie, to be a judge at a painting competition. You know, it’s easy to forget that even formal communications are made by people, with all their intentions and nuances. What were they hoping for? His approval? His blessing? You can feel the weight of tradition and the desire for progress in their careful phrasing. And I wonder, did Allebé accept? Did he see the potential in the young artists, or did he cling to the past? These letters, they're not just documents, they're whispers from another time, inviting us to imagine the human dramas behind the art.