Illustration til "De tre kongsdøtre i berget det blå" 1870 - 1886

Editor: This is "Illustration til 'De tre kongsdøtre i berget det blå'" created between 1870 and 1886, using ink on drawing. I’m immediately struck by how delicate and intimate it feels. It's just a small rocking crib, yet it evokes such a sense of quiet and solitude. What social narratives do you think this piece is hinting towards? Curator: I think you've identified its intimacy. What this evokes for me is a critical point. How might ideas about gender, in the late 19th Century, been at play when this was produced? Who was looking after children, in this historical framework, and what types of cultural production were these social figures permitted or able to produce? Editor: So, you're suggesting we look at the assumed role of women, and perhaps their limited access to artistic spheres at that time? That perhaps there are ideas here that were so intrinsic as to have become invisible at the time, in ways they wouldn't be to our contemporary way of looking? Curator: Precisely. I see it through a lens of power dynamics and societal expectations. Is this a mother depicted in this art? A caregiver? The artist themselves? Those questions, I find, open up powerful conversations. We must examine the structures that elevate certain voices while marginalizing others. Think about whose stories get told and how these representations shape our understanding of gender and labor. Editor: That’s fascinating! I hadn't considered that this simple image could carry such a complex social commentary. Thanks! Curator: It is an image that quietly yet emphatically encapsulates the unsung perspectives of 19th-century familial care. Thinking critically helps unearth such perspectives.