Meisje bij een waterpomp 1842 - 1884

Curator: Isn't it enchanting? This piece, titled "Meisje bij een waterpomp," or "Girl at a Water Pump," is an etching dating sometime between 1842 and 1884. The hand behind it is that of Kornelis Jzn de Wijs. Editor: My first thought is… peaceful. A stillness permeates this seemingly simple scene. You know, that sort of ordinary quiet moment you only recall in reflection. Curator: Ordinary is a lovely way to describe it. The well itself, the source of life giving water. In iconography, water frequently suggests purity, rebirth… think baptism. A connection to something greater. Editor: Exactly, like how the very act of drawing water links her to generations doing the same, day after day, season after season, such mundane symbolism. I also keep getting drawn to the rendering of the trees, a hazy dark border which presses inwards, not in a threatening way, just subtly, grounding her within her familiar space. Curator: Notice too the texture! Etching gives this soft, almost dreamlike quality, quite at odds with the practical chore she's engaged in. Do you feel that conflict? Editor: Totally! There’s the rough wooden clog shoes, versus the light caught in her hair. Then a rigid upright pump meets a gentle billowing dress; a perfect visual metaphor to present an individual shaped by work and the land they live off, yet in constant fluid negotiation with the forces of culture and history, if I am going to make the big leap, naturally! Curator: Beautifully said! I'll be turning that into our label somehow! I wonder, would it hold the same allure painted in vibrant colours, or does it need the soft neutrality of the etching? Editor: I cannot envision this particular image thriving under such gaudy presentation. No, the mystery thrives thanks to the image's unassuming aesthetic and soft hand of history to make her feel eternally fixed here with us. Curator: The gentle ambiguity suits it well. The sort of piece you keep glancing back at and never tiring of. Editor: Like a childhood memory – hazy around the edges, but comforting, complete, in its imperfect telling.