Stoel c. 1897 - 1898

Editor: Here we have "Stoel," a drawing by Carel Adolph Lion Cachet from around 1897 or 1898. It looks like a quick sketch in pencil and ink, almost like a study of form. The chair seems so simple, yet I find it rather haunting. What's your take on it? Curator: This seemingly simple chair, drawn in the late 19th century, actually offers a powerful lens through which to examine the era's shifting social landscape. Consider the chair itself—a ubiquitous object, a symbol of domesticity, of patriarchal control. But Cachet's rendering disrupts this comfortable narrative, doesn't it? Editor: How so? It just looks like a basic sketch. Curator: Precisely! Its incompleteness, its sketchiness, speaks to a period of transition and questioning of traditional roles. We have industrialization rapidly changing daily life. Do you notice how the harsh lines lack any soft furnishing; the sketch feels barren, and devoid of domestic comfort? The incomplete style could be a reflection of society itself undergoing construction, deconstruction. What statement is being made by depicting what’s absent? Editor: That makes me think about the role of women then. Confined to the domestic space but starting to push against those boundaries? Is that something you see reflected here? Curator: Absolutely. The chair, often associated with women’s work and domesticity, is presented here as a stark, almost architectural form. Could this emptiness also be viewed as a resistance to being confined? Think of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own.” Is the chair a space denied, or a space being redefined? Editor: Wow, I hadn't considered all those layers. I was just seeing a simple sketch, but now it feels like a symbol of social change. Curator: Exactly! And that’s the power of art, isn’t it? To challenge our perceptions and invite us to reconsider the narratives we inherit. Editor: Definitely given me a lot to think about. I'll never look at a chair the same way again.