Lijst met verkopen 1849 - 1895

Curator: This intriguing sheet of paper comes from Willem Koekkoek. Titled "Lijst met verkopen," or "List of Sales," it was likely created sometime between 1849 and 1895 and is now held in the Rijksmuseum. It's rendered with ink and pencil on paper. Editor: There’s a powerful vulnerability in this object. The casual scrawl feels so private. Seeing someone’s raw notes like this feels very intimate, and time-worn. Curator: The act of recording, of listing sales, becomes in itself an assertion of agency. Who controlled the transactions? What power structures are suggested by its seemingly mundane role? The economic reality in Europe was volatile at that time...it’s fascinating to think about this document within that broader landscape. Editor: Precisely, the cultural and emotional investment in money and possessions comes to mind immediately when seeing this image. Currency has always carried a complex weight, influencing the identities and interpersonal relations it touches. The marks crossing out certain details hint at deals won and lost, reinforcing that symbolic importance. Curator: Right, but it also might be records of completed deals, prices offered... We shouldn’t over-determine that part of the reading! These symbols of monetary transaction evoke social power as well as class structures and mobility. Whose economy were we tracking in these markings? Editor: You are right, it remains intriguingly ambivalent, which enhances that weight. It also emphasizes the tension that all symbol sets present, this duality between intent and imposed cultural meaning. Thank you. Curator: Of course, thanks to you as well! A glimpse of art, the economy, and the soul... it seems like the conversation has many entries here, too.