Boerenmeisje op de grond naast een boom zittend 1806

Curator: This delicate drawing is by Jacob Ernst Marcus, titled “Boerenmeisje op de grond naast een boom zittend," created in 1806. It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: She looks so still. There’s a gentle sadness, a real human presence, that seems caught in time. It reminds me of summers in a long, long ago. Curator: Indeed, the artist employed mainly pencil on paper, creating nuanced tonality, from delicate lines sketching the distant landscape, to heavier shading that sculpts the peasant girl figure, emphasizing both her isolation and relationship with nature. How would the contemporary production of drawings relate, I wonder, to these rural subjects. Editor: You know, I’m really drawn to her bare foot, so casually placed on the ground. It brings a reality to her which contrasts against the dreamy, romantic background. A tension appears there, in her stance with the environment. Curator: The work certainly reveals the prevailing class structures of the time, in which rural subjects were common romantic tropes, yet often distanced from the lived experience and labour of peasant life. I can also imagine the kind of paper available, or what types of pencils influenced his stylistic decisions. Editor: You are thinking like the archeologist of art, I think. I feel her humanity, a sense of longing maybe. What was she dreaming? What stories lay hidden beneath the quiet surface? Perhaps she too was reflecting on materials, tools for the field, fabrics for her clothing? Curator: Perhaps! Considering the Romantic leanings in genre painting that time, Jacob’s artistic choice here does point to something significant about rural lives and working roles for girls like her. Editor: I appreciate both how her story seems still present to us now and how his material reality influenced this moment of artistic representation. Thanks, Jacob, and thanks too for a thoughtful walk around this lovely piece.