Gezicht op een eetzaal op de begane grond in Kasteel Beauvoorde in Wulveringem, België before 1898

H. Waeles made this depiction of a dining room at Beauvoorde Castle, likely through photographic means. Consider the material reality of the room itself. Almost everything we see is the product of intense, skilled labor. The heavy timber of the ceiling, the patterned brick of the fireplace, the turned legs of the table, all demanded expertise to create. These are the accumulated skills of generations. Even the more refined elements in the room, like the plates on the mantlepiece and the chandelier above, testify to the range of activity that fueled this domestic setting. It’s easy to look past the labor involved and just see a static scene. But when you linger on the materiality of the room, you begin to understand the social relationships that made it possible. So we have to think about where things come from, how they’re made, and the human effort invested in their creation.