Three women labourers 1662

Curator: This intriguing sketch, dating from 1662, is titled "Three women labourers" and was rendered by Esaias Boursse. Editor: There's a vulnerability here. They're quite bare, yet poised. Not sexualized, just...present, solid, like worn stone sculptures holding silent stories. Curator: Indeed. It’s drawn on paper with what looks like pencil and coloured pencil. We can discern three figures. Two standing prominently in the foreground, and one sitting in the back to the left. Each has a cloth wrapped on her head, and another as dress. Editor: The cloth seems less about modesty and more about necessity—protection, perhaps? Like practical extensions of their skin, woven armor in a world that offers little else. Are we seeing an act of defamiliarization? A reevaluation of Western perceptions of non-Western bodies? Curator: It's compelling to consider what their daily life looked like, based on their pose and outfits. One of the standing figures has her hands on her hip. There is some confidence radiating through. The bodies feel so grounded. This image also feels modern. I believe many contemporary viewers would see in these figures a sense of quiet dignity and strength that transcends their labour. The very medium used -- a simple pencil -- lends a kind of immediacy. Editor: The lines do capture something raw. Those charcoal-ish tones render the figures with such gravity, one might perceive them as statues chiseled out of basalt, anchored to the earth. Their humanity rises up and speaks of the soul. There’s very little shading to indicate the setting…is that a kind of universalization, suggesting these “labourers” could be *any* labourers, from *any* time? Curator: Interesting angle, it certainly makes one question the symbols. Boursse allows us to create our own understanding. Editor: Absolutely. And in the end, that’s what the true work of art should achieve. Thanks for joining me today!