Welgestelde familie in hun woonkamer 1789

Curator: Let's discuss this fascinating piece, "Welgestelde familie in hun woonkamer," or "Wealthy Family in their Living Room" created in 1789. It is rendered as an etching, engraving, and watercolor print on paper. What's your first take on this interior scene? Editor: Immediately I notice the sharp contrasts—light and dark, wealth and servitude, direct gazes versus averted ones. It gives a very stratified feel, literally and figuratively. Curator: It's interesting that you pick up on the stratification, which the materiality echoes. This is a print, produced via a distinctly laborious and commercial process intended for wide distribution, depicting a scene of domestic affluence rooted in the realities of late 18th-century social hierarchies. The image, though, is also tinted by hand with watercolor adding to the sense of luxury around its circulation. Editor: I am struck by the family gathered together, surrounded by symbols of wealth and power: their clothing, the abundance on the table, the presence of the servant...but there is also something in their bearing. The woman and children almost seem to float against the darker background. Does it seem the same to you? Curator: I would agree to some degree, and one can consider how prints operated within a consumer culture, manufacturing a very idealized image of the domestic sphere and moral probity, perhaps obscuring more complex realities through the smoothness of the print itself combined with hand coloring of a new leisure class emerging. Editor: The figures themselves embody ideals: the upright father figure at the table representing reason and industry, the elaborately adorned wife symbolizing both beauty and status. The child playing on the floor, oblivious to the economic currents that allow them to live such a life... What of the other figures; their positions seem significant. Curator: The details matter here, too. Note the books stacked on the table alongside fruit. These elements showcase the cultivation of both mind and palate—both of which were being bought. The choice of the printing medium itself and the material of watercolor reflects and reinforces the message: the careful management and deployment of labor and skill toward material gain but hand painting speaks to craft and skill by individuals also. Editor: There is certainly a lot to take away from examining the symbols present in this image, both large and small! Thanks to this analysis, I certainly see even more nuances at play. Curator: Yes, by considering both the production process and the symbolic representations, a new layer of understanding arises for how these pieces gain new contexts.