Kalender van 1888 met schip en roeiboot op zee c. 1888

Curator: The textures are remarkable in this "Kalender van 1888 met schip en roeiboot op zee," or "Calendar of 1888 with ship and rowboat at sea," created around 1888 by Elisa Osterrieth. It's an engraving, blending print and ink drawing so seamlessly. What's your immediate take? Editor: Stark. It strikes me as melancholic, like a maritime elegy printed on an old map. All the detail somehow emphasizes the starkness. Curator: It’s fascinating how Osterrieth intertwined practical use—a calendar—with potent symbolism. Notice how natural elements like thistles and cattails frame the image? Editor: Absolutely. There’s an entire coded visual language embedded here. The thistle, for instance, has long carried associations with both Scottish heritage and, more universally, resilience. The cattails add a counterpoint; traditionally they are emblems of peace and plenty. This era had the rise of scientific rationalism; yet folk and spiritual symbolism continued, so to use plants with calendar lists feels very potent and interesting, the merge of the modern age and long held belief. Curator: I'm with you. Then there's the prominent ship itself—a vessel crossing turbulent waters—and it may symbolize life's journey with its challenges. Even the fishing equipment hints at labor, reliance on natural resources, human enterprise and survival, as if it represents something akin to society as a whole? Editor: It almost feels like a snapshot of societal anxieties in the late 19th century. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the world at great speed, maritime shipping grew at an incredible pace—bringing goods across the oceans, but here nature and its old folk knowledge hold space in modern-day to day. The artist manages to synthesize and make tangible an environment of enormous and rapid change. Curator: It is quite brilliant. I didn’t see it quite that way, but how very true! It speaks volumes of the socio-economic tensions as humanity sailed forward on the oceans of new invention! Thanks! Editor: My pleasure, until next time!