Cries of London: No.1: Buy a Trap, a Rat-Trap 1799

Henri Merke created this print, “Cries of London: No.1: Buy a Trap, a Rat-Trap” around the turn of the 19th century. The image teems with cages and traps. The vendor in the foreground holds up his wares to a potential buyer, while a black dog stares up expectantly. But what is the significance of these traps and cages? They speak to a fundamental tension: the desire to contain, to control the wild. Consider the "memento mori," the vanitas paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, in which caged birds were symbols of mortality, of life’s fleeting nature. Here, the rat traps are a tool to ward off the plague and disease, yet they are also a stark reminder of the ever-present threat of death. This image embodies a cultural obsession with the precariousness of life and the human attempt to impose order upon chaos. These symbols persist, surfacing in our collective consciousness time and again.