Ambachten 1878

De Ruyter & Meijer’s “Ambachten” depicts various trades, each presented as a window into the industrious life of the time. Here we observe archetypal figures, the carpenter, the butcher, the chimney sweep, and the tailor, each immersed in their craft. Consider the image of the chimney sweep. Blackened with soot, he stands as a modern echo of ancient underworld figures, a Charon ferrying souls through the dark, unseen passages of the home. This figure appears throughout history, from folklore to literature, often as a bringer of luck, a symbolic cleanser of the hearth. The recurring image of the sooty sweep resonates with our primal associations of cleanliness and purity, and it connects us to a collective, subconscious understanding of the home as both a safe haven and a site of hidden dangers. In our own time, these images of labor and craft evoke a sense of nostalgia, a yearning for a connection to the tangible, the handmade. This longing is not new, but a continuous thread in the human experience, as trades evolve and society progresses.