Writing boy with little sister 1875

Albrecht Anker painted this genre scene with oils, likely on canvas, sometime in the late 19th century. The artist has rendered the children in careful detail, giving great attention to the surfaces and textures of everyday life. The wooden desk, the paper, the ink, the quill – all have a tactile quality. You can see the weight of the inkwell, the smoothness of the nib. Note also the boy’s hands, which are rendered as though accustomed to physical work, not just handwriting. Anker’s painting has a clear relationship to labor and class. Before industrial manufacturing made schooling universal, learning to write was a skill reserved for those destined for administrative work. The sister looks on in admiration, a reminder of the social mobility that literacy could provide. Anker doesn't flatten the world into a facile binary of work and fine art, but rather acknowledges the value of work.