Loterijbrief 1809 - 1811

This is a lottery ticket, printed on paper, for the Royal Dutch Lottery in 1809, signed by D.C. de Groot Jamin. The ticket is a product of its time, reflecting early 19th-century printing technology. You can see the marks of the printing press, the impression of the type on the page. The relatively simple design and the use of typography as the primary visual element speaks to a culture of nascent industrialization and mass communication. The lottery itself was a means of generating revenue for the state, and this ticket represents a small stake in that system. Consider the amount of work involved: from the making of the paper to the typesetting and printing, to the labor of distributing and selling the tickets. It’s a fascinating artifact when we consider the social and economic conditions that made it possible. Here we have not only the work of an individual, but the collective labor of society manifested in a single object.