Twee staande vrouwen 1711 - 1781

Hendrik Busserus made this drawing of two standing women with pen in gray and watercolor around 1740 in the Netherlands. We see two women dressed in what seems to be traditional attire, and we might wonder about the significance of this kind of representation in its social and cultural context. The clothes these women wear are strongly associated with a particular place, class, and even set of values. In the eighteenth century, the Netherlands was dominated by powerful merchant families, the so-called Regents, who controlled political and economic life. Cultural institutions like the theater, the press, and the art market helped to produce and reproduce the values of this elite class. This print gives us an insight into the social structures of its time. Is it self-consciously conservative or progressive? Does it critique the institutions of art? To better understand the significance of this drawing, we could research the fashion of the time and how different social groups presented themselves in visual imagery. The historian seeks to reveal the social conditions that shape artistic production.