Gezicht op de Waag te Leiden 1879 - 1900

This photograph of the Waag in Leiden was produced by Jan Goedeljee in the Netherlands, sometime in the late 19th century. The Waag, or Weigh House, was a vital institution in Dutch cities, a place where goods were officially weighed, and taxes levied. Goedeljee’s image, then, is not just an architectural study. It also captures a key node in the economic and social life of Leiden. The activity, the men busily weighing and taxing goods, points to the economic structures that undergirded Dutch society at the time. The institutional history of the Waag, its role in regulating commerce and generating revenue, is embedded in this image. We might consider the politics of such imagery too. Does it celebrate Dutch commerce? Or, does it hint at the social inequalities inherent in such a system? To fully understand this photograph, one might delve into municipal archives, economic histories, and visual studies of Dutch society, coming to a deeper understanding of art as contingent on its social and institutional context.