Reproductie van een ontwerp van een naakte vrouw op het strand before 1899

This is Wilhelm Cronenberg's reproduction of a design of a nude woman on the beach. The image shows an unclothed woman reclining on the shore, a composition which has a long history in European art. From the Renaissance onward, the female nude became an acceptable subject for high art, but only when justified by allegory, mythology, or moralizing narratives. What’s interesting about this image, given the apparent lack of a narrative or allegory, is to consider what was accepted when this image was made, and for what purposes. The image is preserved as a reproduction in a book; the book itself has a stamp on it indicating it was once part of a library collection. By looking at the archival records from libraries and collections, we can start to understand how images like this one were consumed at the time. We might ask: what social and cultural functions did they serve?