Onbekende vrouwen met manden aan een water before 1897

Christiaan Johan Neeb made this small print of unknown women with baskets by a river in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. The image encapsulates a particular kind of visual and social order. Neeb was a Dutch artist. The culture of the Netherlands at this time was heavily shaped by its colonial past and its strict social hierarchies. Photography provided new ways to represent social and gender roles. Images like this one might participate in the picturesque aesthetic, which often romanticized the lives of the working class. The women are shown in a natural setting, engaged in what looks like their daily labor. The image is a glimpse into a specific time and place, one where women's work and their relationship to the natural world were seen through a particular lens. To further understand this image, we might explore archives that contain photographs of working-class women from the Netherlands and its colonies. These visual resources, combined with historical accounts, can help us better understand the social and economic context.