Vignet met gereedschap en het wapen van Haarlem 1878 - 1940

This is Elias Voet Junior's 'Vignet met gereedschap en het wapen van Haarlem,' a small woodcut print made sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. There’s something so graphic and bold about the way Voet handles the black ink against the white paper. You can almost feel the pressure of the tool carving away at the wood, creating these sharp, decisive lines. It's not just about depicting objects, but the pure joy of mark-making. Look at how the tools overlap and intersect – a mallet, a trowel, a pair of compasses. Each object is so carefully rendered. The texture of the cushion at the bottom, with its tiny, regular stitches, is mesmerizing. This piece is a reminder that even in the most seemingly straightforward images, there is room for poetry and a lot of interesting information about the culture that produced it. It makes me think of the graphic work of someone like Emil Nolde, who also embraced the raw energy of woodcut printing.