Interieur van een café 1898

Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita produced this woodcut, 'Interior of a Café', sometime in the early twentieth century. It shows a man reading a newspaper and a woman sipping a drink while wearing an elaborate fur-trimmed coat. The image speaks to the culture of leisure and café society that was emerging in Europe at the time. Cafés were important social spaces, and in the absence of other information, we might assume this is a typical scene of modern life. But Mesquita was a Sephardic Jew in the Netherlands, and in the 1920s and 30s the rise of Fascism posed a direct threat to Jewish people across Europe. We might consider that the ‘IJS’ in the background of the image is not simply an abbreviation for an ice cream shop, but also an encoded reference to Jessurun de Mesquita’s own identity. Understanding this image requires attention to social history. Researching Mesquita’s biography and the historical context of early 20th-century Europe can tell us more about the meanings of this seemingly simple artwork.