Fotoreproductie van een prent naar het schilderij Muscipula, een meisje met een muizenval, door Joshua Reynolds before 1874

This is a photographic reproduction of a print of a painting from late 18th-century Britain, after Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds, as the first president of the Royal Academy, can be seen as a key figure in the institutionalization of art. He painted portraits of the rich and famous but his "fancy pictures" of children appealed to a broader market. Here, the cute innocence of childhood belies something darker. The girl appears to be luring a mouse into a trap, a metaphor for the loss of innocence and dangers awaiting young women as they grow. Understanding this image means researching not only Reynolds's own commercial acumen, but also wider cultural attitudes to childhood and gender, and the emerging print market. These social and institutional contexts shape our understanding of even the most apparently simple image.