Boerin uit Hoorn 1619 - 1623

Editor: Here we have Adriaen Matham’s "Boerin uit Hoorn", an engraving dating from 1619-1623. It’s a lovely image of a young woman, presumably a farm girl, in a detailed landscape. It's fascinating how much detail he gets into this image, with all those cross-hatching marks creating shadows! What strikes you about this print? Curator: It’s a superb example of how printmaking democratized art production and visual culture in the Dutch Golden Age. Note how the material reality of agricultural life—the onions, the bucket, even her somewhat plain clothing—becomes the very subject. This wasn’t necessarily art for the elite. Editor: So, instead of biblical scenes or portraits of nobility, we have… onions? Curator: Exactly! This print collapses the distinction between "high" art and the everyday lives of working people. Think about the labour involved - from the farmer cultivating those onions, to the artist meticulously engraving the plate, to the printing process itself. Who owned these prints? How were they circulated and consumed? Editor: So, its value isn’t just in the image, but in the entire process of its creation and circulation. That’s a very different way of seeing it. Curator: Precisely. We're not just looking at a "portrait;" we’re examining a node in a whole network of production and consumption. The material conditions that make art possible are central to understanding it. What might this image have meant to someone buying it from a market stall in Hoorn? Editor: That gives me a lot to think about – shifting the focus from the subject to the means of production, circulation and consumption and situating that shift historically. Thanks! Curator: My pleasure! It reveals hidden dynamics within Dutch society through seemingly simple materials and techniques.