Liggende koe, een eend en twee mannen met een zeis c. 1862 - 1864

Curator: This fascinating sketch by Johannes Tavenraat, created circa 1862-1864, is titled "Liggende koe, een eend en twee mannen met een zeis"—"Lying cow, a duck, and two men with a scythe." It's currently housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Oh, wow. Immediately, I'm struck by how ghostly the cow appears, almost floating. And then there are these tiny figures bustling about beneath it; the composition is just plain weird, off kilter somehow! Curator: That's an insightful response. Think about the social context: 19th-century Dutch Realism sought to depict everyday life, yet Tavenraat offers us not just a scene, but perhaps a commentary on rural existence. Editor: A commentary? More like a surreal little daydream. I love how casual the drawing is; the lines are so sketchy, you can almost feel the artist just jotting it all down as it came to him. There are also scrawled handwritten notes next to the duck that could reflect an insight of the landscape's feel! Curator: Precisely. These casual observations speak to the economic realities faced by rural workers. Note the men with scythes: agrarian labor, land ownership, and the often-precarious balance between humans and nature are all key. Editor: I suppose I see your point but still: that cow. The sheer, impractical scale of it compared to those tiny farmers makes the whole scene feel a bit like a folk tale. Curator: A fruitful way of observing folk tales as narratives that encode complex social and economic relations! How could gender, power and perhaps even class enter this seemingly straightforward depiction? Editor: Perhaps that reclining cow symbolises pastoral passivity, or, heck, just the humble reality of farm life! Look! Now I see that this artwork has so much more depth to it than I first gave it credit for! Curator: Indeed. The beauty lies in its complexity, offering new angles to ponder depending on where you choose to position yourself within it. Editor: Exactly! Thank you Johannes Tavenraat.