Album met prenten, foto's en tekeningen van ornamenten c. 1866 - 1900

Editor: This is "Album met prenten, foto's en tekeningen van ornamenten" by Michel Liéenard, dating from around 1866 to 1900, and including drawings, mixed media, prints, photography, all on paper. Looking at this book cover, the marbled effect seems very representative of its time, it gives the object an almost scientific or taxonomic quality. How do you see this compilation through a contemporary lens? Curator: Well, I'm immediately drawn to consider this album as an act of preservation. Think about it – at the intersection of photography and printmaking, what narratives of power and industrial progress were these images reinforcing? This isn't just a book; it's a curated archive. Who gets to decide what is worthy of documentation and preservation, and who benefits from it? Editor: That's a really interesting point, about preservation. Were albums like these common? Who might have used this type of book? Curator: Exactly! These albums were accessible mainly to wealthy industrialists or members of the upper classes. They would have utilized these books as resources for their own creative endeavors. Now, if we were to consider this practically, these images provided a kind of design library. These designs also served a very specific function: to bolster the identities and taste of the moneyed class in a rapidly industrializing Europe. How do these kinds of "taste-making" books reflect back on societal expectations around production, class, gender, and labour? Editor: That makes a lot of sense. So it’s not just a pretty object; it is an instrument of the elite and part of the larger power dynamics. Curator: Precisely. And that’s what makes studying these seemingly straightforward, beautiful things so compelling. The ornament stands not merely for surface decoration, but for much deeper social, political, and economic underpinnings of design and its consumption. Editor: I'll never look at a marbled book cover the same way again! Thanks for shedding light on the socioeconomic elements represented by this artwork!