Huwelijk van Koningin Wilhelmina met Hendrik van Mecklenburg-Schwerin te Amsterdam 1901 1901

Lambertus Zijl made this bronze medal of Queen Wilhelmina's wedding to Hendrik van Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Amsterdam in 1901. You can see the image is stamped into the metal, not painted, which is interesting – a kind of printmaking. I’m thinking about the artist, Zijl, as a kind of witness, tasked with capturing the spirit of the moment, the feeling of joy and civic pride. On one side, the Queen sits tall on a horse, stately. I imagine Zijl carefully working the metal, trying to convey the symbolism of royalty and duty. He captures a sense of optimism and hope for the future, even though the medium – metal – is so solid and cold. On the flipside, Zijl depicts a ship on the water. It makes me think of the flow of ideas, people, and cultures. Zijl must have felt the weight of history as he worked, thinking of what it means to create symbols that will last and what they will mean to future generations.