Bastringue, door dieven gebruikt om geld te verstoppen in intieme holtes van het lichaam before 1890

This anonymous print, titled "Bastringue," depicts a collection of tools used by thieves to conceal money within their bodies. The stark, symmetrical arrangement of these objects—keys, saws, and a cylindrical container—against the neutral background creates a sense of unsettling order. The choice to present these illicit tools in such a clinical, almost taxonomic fashion, underscores a fascination with the structural aspects of criminality itself. Each instrument, rendered with meticulous detail, becomes a signifier within a larger semiotic system of theft and concealment. The print destabilizes the conventional understanding of boundaries, both physical and moral. It invites us to consider the complex relationship between form, function, and the human body, and to confront the unsettling notion that tools of subversion can be as precisely crafted as tools of creation.