Deez' prent met veel verscheidenheid, / Wordt lievers u weêr toegewijd [(...)] 1827 - 1894

Curator: What a sweet little sampler of scenes! Almost feels like peering into a dollhouse with lives unfolding. Editor: This is “Deez' prent met veel verscheidenheid, / Wordt lievers u weêr toegewijd [(...)]”, a print by M. Hemeleers-van Houter, dating from around 1827 to 1894. It's an etching. Curator: Etching, yes, it has that hand-drawn feel. I imagine each little tableau telling a story – little vignettes into ordinary life with splashes of colour. Look at those interiors! What would it have felt like to live within these walls? Editor: Exactly! Consider the materials and the printing process here. Each panel is its own micro-narrative, reproduced mechanically, meaning each little story is dispersed to many people, speaking to daily routines but rendered accessible, almost a prototype comic book. Curator: A prototype, yes! But so gentle. Imagine the artist, so thoughtfully capturing each tiny narrative. Look at the details – the way the light falls through the windows in a naive sort of way... The intimacy... Editor: The charm, though, obscures labour. Consider the creation of the printing plate, the ink, the press, the paper – each a commodity, each bearing traces of extraction, production, of workers. These 'ordinary' scenes are sustained by global flows of labour and material. Curator: I suppose that’s right. Even at such a scale it carries great meaning. Though, I can't help but get lost within those contained domestic worlds, pondering about what stories may emerge from those very mundane circumstances. Editor: Absolutely. Genre painting offered new opportunities to explore and examine individual and group identity and actions and also was very profitable at the time. But from a materials standpoint, seeing how it was printed can bring to mind other reflections about it too. Curator: Indeed. A sweet package of thought, no matter how one perceives it! Editor: I think it asks a viewer to delve in, no matter how deeply!