Wandelende jongen met een speelgoedauto c. 1928 - 1941

Miep de Feijter made this line drawing of a boy with a toy car. Look at the almost mechanical, dotted marks of the jacket and the way the eyes have been made with just single dark dots, as if applied with a stamp. I wonder if Miep was thinking about her own childhood, her own toys when she made this. Did she watch children at play and quickly sketch what she saw, or was this from her memory? Perhaps she spent time thinking through how to reduce an image to its bare essentials. You know, just what is needed to conjure up an image of a child and a toy car on the viewer’s mind. The figure in the doorway is also quite the character; I think it might be his mother, who is probably looking on with an adoring gaze. All these lines create a sense of depth and atmosphere that allow the artist to show us a snapshot of a different era.