Brand in een huis 1782 - 1837

Pieter Bartholomeusz. Barbiers created this miniature watercolor painting, "Fire in a House," using traditional materials of paper, pigment, and brush. Barbiers’s technique is suggestive; the strokes are visible in the final image. The texture of the paper is palpable. Notice the artist’s rendering of the urgency of a house on fire, with people scrambling on ladders. The painting’s scale underscores the detailed labor involved, given the degree of representation and visual information that Barbiers was able to convey. As a record of a social event, this work transcends the typical distinction between fine art and craft, with the artist documenting this scene, and his labor, through this artwork.