Edith Jetten voert een hertje 1925 - 1927

Editor: This gelatin silver print, “Edith Jetten voert een hertje” – or "Edith Jetten feeding a deer" – was taken sometime between 1925 and 1927 by an anonymous photographer. There’s something so intimate and domestic about this scene, yet the landscape feels somehow remote. What do you see in this image, Professor? Curator: I see the echo of ancient myths and archetypes. The young woman, bathed in light, offering sustenance to a deer... it evokes Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, or even earlier figures like Artemis. Do you notice how the wicker furniture suggests a controlled, almost civilized space, contrasting with the implied wildness beyond? It’s a powerful dichotomy. Editor: I hadn’t considered that. The contrast between domesticity and wilderness. Curator: Consider the deer, a creature often associated with vulnerability and grace. In Celtic traditions, the deer is a guide to the Otherworld. What does it mean that she's feeding it? Editor: Perhaps a willingness to bridge the gap between two worlds. To nurture the wild within the tame? Curator: Precisely. And the act of photographing itself is key here: it freezes this interaction, making a timeless symbol out of an everyday event. Doesn’t it invite us to reconsider our relationship with nature, and perhaps our own inner nature too? Editor: It definitely makes me look at it differently. I was focusing on the 'everyday' and now I see so much more. Curator: That is the enduring power of imagery: to awaken the symbolic layers within what we perceive as mundane. The personal becomes universal. Editor: Thank you for this reading, now it has much more depth.