Huwelijk van Frederik, prins der Nederlanden en Louise, prinses van Pruisen te Berlijn 1825

Editor: This is an engraving of a metal relief titled "Huwelijk van Frederik, prins der Nederlanden en Louise, prinses van Pruisen te Berlijn," created in 1825. The front shows a standing woman with classical architecture elements in the background, and the reverse has radiating lines around a triangle with an eye. It has an almost theatrical quality. What do you make of it? Curator: The theatricality you're sensing is key. Consider this object within its historical context. Commemorative medals like these, particularly those celebrating royal unions, served as powerful tools for disseminating political ideology and reinforcing social hierarchies. Who do you think this female figure represents, and what might she symbolize in relation to this marriage? Editor: Maybe she is an allegorical figure, like, representing Prussia or the Netherlands, maybe both? Curator: Precisely. The iconography draws from Neoclassicism, an art movement deliberately echoing classical antiquity and ideas of the Enlightenment, which was itself intertwined with revolution and changing social orders. The figures in this image don’t simply celebrate a marriage; they construct a narrative of dynastic power and national identity, carefully designed for public consumption. But consider who this “public” was, and whose voices are conspicuously absent from this celebratory image. Editor: So, we are meant to see the power and stability of this union, but perhaps it also obscures other realities or voices? Curator: Exactly. And that's where examining such objects through a contemporary lens becomes crucial. Who benefitted, and at whose expense, from such unions? How do symbols of power shift, and whose stories remain untold within official narratives? What happens to those silenced histories? Editor: That really reframes how I see the artwork. I hadn't thought about what isn’t shown in this commemoration. Curator: Thinking about that absence reveals the limitations of this carefully constructed image, it provokes questioning the stories told through symbols and statecraft.