De herderin 1894 - 1959

This print, titled "De herderin," was created by Gordinne, and it lives here in the Rijksmuseum. It's like a page torn from a storybook, isn't it? A series of scenes, each bordered by a thin, barely-there line, shows the journey of our "herderin," or shepherdess. I can almost feel Gordinne carefully drawing each figure, the ink delicate yet deliberate. There's a kind of gentle humor in the way these characters are posed, their expressions captured in simple lines. It reminds me of those old folk tales, the kind where a simple girl outsmarts a king, or maybe finds a bit of magic along the way. It's hard to tell exactly what Gordinne was thinking, but I imagine she was just trying to bring these tales to life. Like a visual storyteller, she uses each scene to unfold a narrative, inviting us to imagine the dialogue, the emotions, the world beyond the frame. Painters often are in conversation with one another across time, and I imagine she had a connection with other storytellers through time!