Bandontwerp voor: Pieter Louwerse, Lotgevallen en reizen van Sindbad den Zeeman. Geschiedenis van de eerste tot zevende en laatste reis, 1910 before 1910

This is H.C. Louwerse’s 1910 book cover design for Pieter Louwerse’s adaptation of the tales of Sindbad the Sailor. Louwerse, who was working during the Dutch Golden Age, rendered this cover with graphite and colored pencil. Here, a youthful, fair-skinned woman sits, reading a book. She seems to float above a ring of other women. Dwarves, rabbits, and fairies surround the women in the ring. While Sindbad the Sailor tells the story of a man's adventures in traditionally masculine spaces, Louwerse renders this cover by invoking the world of childhood fantasy, with a central woman positioned as the reader. Note how Louwerse subtly inverts gendered expectations by bringing the female figure, who is often framed as an object within the story, to the fore as the orchestrator of narrative. Louwerse invites us to see the feminine, and perhaps even feminine modes of understanding and creating, as central to the creative process.