Brief aan Philip Zilcken before 1899

This is a letter in French by Roger Marx to Philip Zilcken. Marx was a French art critic, who advocated for artists like Manet, Degas, and Whistler, and defended movements such as Impressionism. Zilcken was a Dutch painter, etcher and art critic. In this letter, it’s clear that the men are colleagues, as Marx addresses Zilcken as “cher confrère”. The letter seems to deal with the logistics of an exhibition (“J’accepte pour le mien votre proposition”), referring to a condition about keeping the text concise. He also mentions a trip through Holland. Through correspondence like this, we can see how the art world functioned at the turn of the 20th century. The Rijksmuseum archives contain an abundance of letters like these, allowing researchers to understand the relationships between artists and critics, the social networks that supported artistic production and the institutional structures through which art was validated. These are just some of the resources we use to reconstruct the contexts that gave meaning to art then, and continue to shape our understanding today.