Marine mit fünf Schiffen im Vordergrund 

Editor: So here we have Jan Verbruggen's watercolor drawing, "Marine mit fünf Schiffen im Vordergrund," its date is unspecified, but it's currently housed in the Städel Museum. It evokes a sense of quiet industry with those meticulously rendered ships. What strikes you most about this piece? Curator: I'm drawn to the tension between the delicate watercolor medium and the representation of labor, specifically seafaring and trade. Think about the social context: Maritime trade was the engine of early capitalism. How does Verbruggen’s choice of a "plein-air" sketch – a supposedly spontaneous and informal mode – both embrace and perhaps soften the edges of that reality? Editor: That's fascinating, I hadn't considered the choice of medium in that light. Does the drawing style normalize the difficult labour involved in maritime trade? Curator: Exactly. Watercolor, often associated with leisure and amateur practice, here depicts scenes crucial to a booming economy fuelled by exploitation and hard labor. Notice how the sketchiness doesn't romanticize the scene, yet avoids overtly critiquing the material realities behind the industry. The drawing makes this exploitative labour digestible. What effect might that have on its intended audience and its value at the time? Editor: That perspective shifts my understanding entirely! So it's less about the picturesque scene and more about the economics embedded in its production and reception. Curator: Precisely. By looking at Verbruggen’s process – the act of observing and sketching a port – alongside the material realities of shipbuilding and maritime labor, we can interpret the artwork through its means of production and place it within its historical moment. It invites us to look closer, past the aesthetic surface. Editor: I appreciate that! I had initially looked at it as purely a landscape image but now I see a whole different story revealed in how it was made, and what those materials and scene signify within a specific social and historical system. Curator: And hopefully this new framework encourages further investigation into similar works and the value assigned to different styles and media in that era.