Twee deuren met gordijnen after 1878

Curator: Immediately, I'm drawn to the inherent drama of this watercolour print from after 1878 titled, "Twee deuren met gordijnen", which translates to "Two doors with curtains." Editor: Drama is right. These aren’t your grandma's curtains—unless your grandma was designing sets for the opera. The crimson one looks particularly weighty, almost oppressive. It makes me feel a bit claustrophobic just looking at it. Curator: Think of them less as window dressings and more as symbols. Doors and curtains function as transitional elements. The way they are dressed reflects more than just fashion, offering clues about status and social expectations. The green is somewhat restrained and suggestive of wealth. Editor: I see your point. Green does conjure thoughts of tradition and the solidity of money, whereas the red seems much more theatrical. Both have something unsettling and playfully absurd, as though you’re peering into a very intense dollhouse. Curator: Indeed, that's the delicate intersection where aesthetic pleasure meets the cultural meaning, where surface and depth merge. Curtains literally cloak our windows but at the same time symbolize protection, intimacy, or secrets. It has been going back centuries! Editor: So, are we hiding or revealing? What is the message here, and why doors? Perhaps, to walk through it is to change yourself from one entity to another? From viewer to something different? Curator: It may reflect a negotiation between visibility and privacy or luxury versus practicality within domestic spaces. And as we absorb the work, don’t we all begin to feel a certain way? What thoughts and images do the symbols elicit within the cultural narrative? Editor: Exactly. Perhaps that’s the trick of this—we’re not just looking at some watercolour of fancy curtains. The anonymous designer here is making us confront all those historical and even personal associations tangled up in the seemingly mundane. A clever illusion.