Wilt met aandacht eens beschouwen, / De beeltenis van deze vier, / Drie die zich bij 't spelen houden, / Een met bloemen ziet gij hier 1827 - 1894

Curator: So, this charming little print—a watercolour titled "Wilt met aandacht eens beschouwen, / De beeltenis van deze vier, / Drie die zich bij 't spelen houden, / Een met bloemen ziet gij hier"—is by M. Hemeleers-van Houter and it’s from somewhere between 1827 and 1894. What do you make of it? Editor: It's…delightfully naive! A set of vignettes, each child frozen in a moment of innocent play. A sort of…contained joy radiates from these oval frames. It reminds me of illustrated children’s books, or even wallpaper, in a very genteel parlor. Curator: It really has a childlike quality about it, doesn’t it? And these snippets of accompanying text! It really pushes it from art into something closer to folk art, broadside illustration, maybe. Look at the clothes they're wearing. Consider what that says about childhood then, or the intent in recording the activities as illustrations? It makes me consider issues surrounding gender, representation and labor. Were the children in similar classes shown playing like this in other artistic or documentary images? Editor: Well, the artist has clearly placed children as their main subject here and their verses talk about ‘play’, this definitely presents a romantic image of innocent children with free time. I wonder, though, what it meant to represent childhood in this way back then? The child with the flowers makes me feel quite melancholic. Curator: Melancholic? Editor: Yes, there’s a gentleness, almost a wistfulness. A bygone era of play... It evokes complex feelings of how childhood should be treasured because it is so short-lived. In my mind, what should never become another bygone. Curator: I agree, the simplicity, the unpretentious rendering, makes one value the ephemeral nature of joy even more, and how necessary images of playfulness are as an example of innocence to strive for, so very lovely.