Gezicht op de ingang van het vrouwentuchthuis in Deventer before 1894

This photograph captures the entrance of the women's prison in Deventer. It was made by an anonymous photographer, and reproduced in a book of Dutch architecture. The image focuses on the building's stone entrance. Notice the incredibly ornate carving: columns, scrolls, and a heraldic crest above the door. Stone is a very weighty material. To achieve this level of detail, you would need highly skilled stonemasons, trained in workshops for many years. This kind of craftsmanship would have been very expensive, a demonstration of civic pride. But consider what's beyond the doorway, and the stories it suggests. Prisons were often commissioned with the aim of reforming the incarcerated. But in practice, they served as sites of punishment and hard labor. Here, that duality is made starkly clear: beautiful stone on the outside, lives constrained on the inside. Thinking about materials, making, and context helps us see how social and political meaning is embedded in every object and artwork.