Zittende vrouw met een mand 1795 - 1813

Joannes Pieter Visser Bender rendered this drawing of a seated woman with graphite sometime before 1813. The figure, adorned in simple garb, rests with a basket at her side, but it's the intimate gesture of her hand resting within the basket that piques interest. Such everyday items carry profound weight. The basket, a vessel of labor and sustenance, speaks to a deeper, universal concept. Consider the ‘Corpus Mysticum’ – the mystical body of Christ often depicted with symbolic containers of spiritual nourishment. The basket here, though secular, echoes this symbolism. This gesture harkens back to ancient Roman depictions of abundance, where cornucopias overflowed with earthly bounty. Across time, it reappears—perhaps less grand but ever-present—in Dutch still lifes, quietly celebrating the fruits of daily life. It’s a poignant reminder that symbols persist. They are reborn and subtly altered by cultural memory and subconscious processes.