Hand rustende op een boek 1770

Here, you're looking at "Hand resting on a book," made with pen in brown ink by Johannes Körnlein, an 18th-century German artist. This drawing offers an intimate glimpse into the world of literacy and leisure during the Enlightenment. It's a period where access to books was increasingly becoming a symbol of status and intellectual curiosity, yet remained largely confined to certain social classes. The delicate rendering of the hand, adorned with the frilled cuff, speaks to a life of relative ease. Consider the silent dialogue between the hand and the book. The gesture suggests a moment of contemplation. It embodies a connection to knowledge, but also hints at the social and cultural privileges that enabled such moments of reflection. In viewing this drawing, we might ask ourselves: What does it mean to have access to knowledge, and how does that access shape our identities and experiences?