Hut op palen aan de waterkant 1842 - 1868

Johannes Tavenraat made this drawing called Hut op palen aan de waterkant, or Hut on stilts by the waterfront, with a pencil. Drawings like this were of great importance in Dutch art and society. From the late 18th century onward, there was a growing interest in the everyday lives of ordinary people, especially those living in the countryside. The Netherlands had become a unified nation-state only recently, and artists were keen to explore what made the Netherlands unique, beyond the cosmopolitan cities. It is likely that Tavenraat was commissioned by an institution to make this drawing, perhaps for an illustrated book that sought to document a sense of national identity. We can see that this is an everyday scene of simple folk, making the drawing inherently political. To understand this drawing better, we might consider the institutional histories of Dutch art, as well as archival research into the artist’s patrons. In doing so, we can understand art as something thoroughly contingent on social and institutional contexts.