Illustratie voor de Decamerone van Boccaccio 1697

This is Romeyn de Hooghe’s etching for Boccaccio’s Decameron, a collection of novellas that explores themes of love, lust, and deception. Here, we witness a man being lowered into a basket, a symbol of confinement and trickery, often linked to tales of hidden lovers and escapades. The basket, a motif as old as the hills, appears in various forms across cultures. From biblical stories of Moses in a reed basket, to the Greek myth of Danaë, where the protagonist is imprisoned in a chest. This act of concealment speaks to a universal narrative of secrets and suppressed desires. The basket itself becomes a stage for human dramas. Think of how the image evokes a sense of unease, a feeling of being trapped, or exposed. Like a serpent shedding its skin, the basket’s symbolism continuously transforms, carrying echoes of past stories while adapting to new contexts, reflecting the cyclical nature of human experience.