Ceres 1510 - 1569

Curator: Let's turn our attention to Jacob Binck’s “Ceres,” an engraving that dates somewhere between 1510 and 1569 and is housed right here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: My first thought is one of cool austerity. The monochromatic engraving style lends a severity to the otherwise classical figure, an unsettling blend of sensuality and hard labor. Curator: Indeed. Binck presents Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, in a complex visual language steeped in Northern Renaissance allegory. We must consider the significance of her attributes – the sickle, the bundle of wheat atop her head – within the socio-political landscape of 16th-century Europe. How do these symbols relate to notions of labor, sustenance, and female power within a patriarchal structure? Editor: What’s compelling is how starkly the production reads: it's an engraving, which speaks to the reproductive potential inherent to the medium. The fine, etched lines were painstakingly made. She herself looks robust, perhaps reflecting not an idealized form, but an image of fertility rooted in actual, physical work, almost challenging typical art and gender roles through labor. Curator: Absolutely, and what does the inclusion of the snake at her feet signify? Is it a symbol of fertility, renewal, or perhaps a darker allusion to the Fall and the disruption of Eden? These images resonate in many cultural and political dialogues across the centuries. Editor: Maybe it represents an old way of producing things being threatened or even crushed, since she's right above it with what looks like a harvesting tool. The tension within the work reflects how materials themselves—wheat, metal, even the reproductive potential of the engraved image—intersected within social conditions. Curator: Viewing “Ceres” allows for deeper interrogation of our contemporary relationships with nature, labor, and representation itself, how female archetypes take on these loaded attributes and what those representations say about the place women occupy in the world of labor and production. Editor: Examining this image reinforces just how intertwined material processes are with historical power dynamics. Looking at it from that angle shifts my thinking every time.