Gezicht op de toren uit 1682 bij de Zusters onder de bogen te Maastricht 1898

This photograph, titled "Gezicht op de toren uit 1682 bij de Zusters onder de bogen te Maastricht" (View of the 1682 tower at the Sisters under the Arches in Maastricht), was created by an anonymous photographer from Monumentenzorg. During this period in Europe, enclosed religious orders of women existed in a complex nexus of spirituality, social constraint, and gendered expectations. The Sisters under the Arches, like many convents, existed as spaces that both confined women and offered them a unique form of autonomy away from the patriarchal structures of secular society. This image, in its rendering of the convent’s architecture, acts as a portrait of that complex arrangement. Consider the layers of enclosure visible here: the outer walls of the building, the barred windows, and the very act of framing the scene through a photographic lens, all point to the themes of surveillance and confinement. Yet, there is a serene beauty in the image, a quiet dignity in the architecture, suggesting the emotional and spiritual solace these spaces might have provided.