Vrouw en in bed liggende man 1842

Charles Rochussen made this print, depicting a woman and a man in bed, sometime in the 19th century. The composition suggests the morning after an aristocratic feast. The woman, still wearing a gown, stands tall, seemingly unaffected by the night’s events, whilst the man lies sprawled in bed, with a dog as his loyal companion. Rochussen worked in the Netherlands, a country dominated by its wealthy merchant class. Here, the artist likely satirizes the aristocracy. The artist seems to suggest an old order in decline: the woman looks forlorn, while the man is drunk. It seems to comment on the social structures of its time, self-consciously progressive, and critiquing the institutions of nobility. To fully understand this print, we might explore Dutch social history and the role of the aristocracy. This work reminds us that art is not made in a vacuum; it’s always contingent on its social and institutional context.