Schaal op een lage voet met een oor in de vorm van een zeemeermin c. 1614 - 1654

Curator: This delicate engraving, crafted by Hendrik van der Borcht II between 1614 and 1654, depicts an ornate bowl resting on a low pedestal. The most striking detail is the handle—shaped like a playful mermaid figure. What are your initial thoughts on this piece? Editor: I find it captivating, this vessel seems suspended between the everyday and the mythological. There's something subtly subversive in the melding of the mundane bowl with that overtly allegorical mermaid handle. It poses questions about function versus symbolism, domesticity against broader societal power structures. Curator: Indeed, its creation coincides with a period of immense global trade, specifically maritime activity. Examining this, the artist used an engraving to create multiples from the primary object—expanding the audience with newly emerging economic patterns. Editor: Absolutely. And beyond trade, it also brings up conversations of gender, and of nature subjugated for domestic convenience, doesn’t it? I see the mermaid itself—a hybrid creature— as embodying the era’s uneasy relationship with ‘the other.’ Curator: I agree; that blending reflects contemporary social hierarchies. Consider the material realities—who would have commissioned and used this kind of object? It certainly points towards wealth, probably acquired through, yes, those globalized trade systems we touched on. It brings art into a setting of upper class labor. Editor: Yes! We have this image acting as documentation and promotion simultaneously. It gives the object greater reach than its physical footprint could have had, extending its influence far beyond its material limitations or presence in a private collection. I find it significant, too, that such craftsmanship would go into something ‘domestic’. Curator: The image captures an object of everyday use imbued with immense symbolic value – echoing the era's fascination with blending classical allegories with the realities of a burgeoning merchant class. Editor: Exactly. Thinking about contemporary applications of identity, how do such representations resonate, challenge, or reinforce the notions of otherness then, and still even now? Curator: Pondering on process, context, and material echoes... the print provides such an abundance of perspectives! Editor: Agreed—a surprisingly complex intersection unveiled by what initially appeared as a simple object of display!