The Procuress 

Curator: Look at this artwork, it's attributed to Jan Steen, titled "The Procuress,". Immediately striking, isn't it? The chaotic interior, the bold expressions. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: I'm immediately drawn to the textures. The coarse fabric of the procuress’s skirt against, what appears to be, a velvet jacket of the man she's engaging with. You can almost feel the differences in their respective social standings through the materials. Curator: Indeed, Steen uses these details to hint at a much larger narrative. This is genre painting at its finest – a glimpse into everyday life, meant to offer a moral commentary on Dutch society during the Golden Age. The procuress figure herself appears in the center offering an arrangement of sorts between the reclining woman in the bed chamber in the left side of the picture plane and the rather joyful male patron on the right of the piece. Editor: Absolutely, and think about the artist's process here. The oil paint meticulously layered to create those textures, to build up these characters—the shine on the brass lantern, the matte finish of the earthenware jug. Every material tells a story, contributing to a kind of consumer culture of desire represented in the canvas. Curator: And what is so remarkable about this portrayal is that Jan Steen uses those textures to expose some hard truths about this society. It raises some rather fascinating, or maybe frightening questions about how images create or expose structures of complicity in Dutch society and beyond it. This piece also reminds me a little bit of the rise of capitalist desire. I wonder who the target audience was for that original piece? Did Jan Steen perhaps use his images to portray an idealised model to attain to, or expose those societal truths that you were mentioning? Editor: The commodification of everything! It seems we are both thinking of this artwork in relation to materialism and moral commentary. It is impossible not to notice, as we follow the trail of money in this canvas. Where does money come from, who touches it and how does that affect people in particular. But maybe that commodification that this canvas seems to expose isn't such a bad thing. What is particularly alluring to me, I admit is that tactile relationship we, as visitors develop with the textures and raw materials on this canvas. Curator: It does invite some reflection and close looking for sure. Editor: Indeed!