Hurkende jongen in een tuin, Buitenzorg c. 1921

Willem Witsen made this etching, "Squatting Boy in a Garden, Buitenzorg," in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia. The image presents a seemingly tranquil scene, but we need to look closer at the social context. During Witsen's time, the Dutch East Indies was a colony of the Netherlands, a place of resource extraction and social control. The image of a local boy in a garden, rendered in the delicate medium of etching, speaks to the complex relationship between colonizer and colonized. Was this image intended to exoticize the local population, to portray them as quaint and subservient? Or, perhaps, did Witsen aim to capture a moment of quiet humanity amidst the power dynamics of colonialism? By researching the history of Dutch colonialism and Witsen's biography, we can better understand the cultural and political context surrounding this work.