Verliefd paartje Possibly 1834 - 1907

Editor: This is "Verliefd paartje," or "Loving Couple," a pen-ink and pencil sketch on paper from Hendrik Jacobus Scholten. It's at the Rijksmuseum and thought to have been made sometime between 1834 and 1907. There’s a beautiful stillness to this drawing – a couple gazing at each other. What strikes you most about it? Curator: The drawing whispers of hidden stories, doesn't it? The garden, rendered so delicately, feels less like a physical space and more like the background of shared dreams, hopes, and even unspoken fears. Look at the way the lines intertwine in the foliage. What emotional register do you sense there? Editor: I notice they are holding hands. The body language and the surrounding park, with that out-of-focus landscape in the back, create this intimate world only for them. It's serene but also makes me curious about their history, about how Romantic era artists were focused on creating intimate everyday images, compared to earlier eras that depicted heroic or Biblical subjects. Curator: Precisely. The 'genre-painting' aspect places love not on a pedestal, but amidst the ordinary. Think about the symbolic weight of hands clasped, and of gardens throughout history; secret encounters in 'hortus conclusus' or closed gardens and private parks… Aren’t they often sites of revelation, vulnerability and decisions, echoing in this tender, almost secretive drawing? What sort of decisions do you imagine taking place? Editor: Probably life-changing ones, engagements or revelations! It’s made me consider the meaning imbued into simple locations like parks during the Romantic era. Curator: And hopefully to see how much art can reside in subtle visual cues that extend beyond this timeframe, echoing and anticipating different depictions of 'lovers in a garden.'