Gezicht op een binnenplaats in Antwerpen 1888

Edouard Tyck created this print depicting a courtyard in Antwerp using etching, a printmaking technique, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Tyck's work captures a common scene of working-class life in a Northern European city, and we might ask what the politics of such imagery were at the time. The scene is one of intimate domesticity, but the neighborhood is densely packed and the buildings show the wear and tear of time and the elements. A woman sits working in the yard, suggesting this space is as much a workplace as a home. The inclusion of washing hanging overhead reinforces this sense of a lived-in, perhaps crowded space. The image is evocative, but what does it tell us about the social conditions of Antwerp at the time? As historians, we can look to census records, city planning documents, and other sources to understand the economic and social forces that shaped the lives of people like those depicted in Tyck’s print.