Rieten manden en een boom bij een muur c. 1864 - 1865

Curator: "Rieten manden en een boom bij een muur," or "Reed baskets and a tree by a wall," a pencil drawing created around 1864-1865 by Maria Vos, offers us a peek into her sketch book. You can find it here at the Rijksmuseum. What's your immediate reaction to it? Editor: Immediate reaction? Hmm, it feels… unfinished, but intentionally so. Like a collection of quiet moments, caught on paper with such a light hand. There's a definite air of intimacy here, almost as if we're glimpsing into the artist's private world. Curator: The placement on a single sheet is what captures my eye, not intended as stand-alone studies but as sketches within the bound artist’s book. Editor: I like that; seeing multiple subjects together as a spread makes me think about visual note-taking and its impact. Curator: Sketches were essential exercises at the time, reflecting Realism’s aim to capture the ordinary world with fidelity and objectivity, while art academies began incorporating these studies into training programs. How the art institutions codified it really changed art making overall. Editor: True, but I see more than just an exercise here. Vos manages to capture the humble beauty of these objects and spaces. The woven texture of the baskets, the roughness of the brick, that scraggly tree – each element rendered with delicate precision. Curator: Well, as a female artist working in the mid-19th century, Maria Vos navigated a complex art world. Female artists had limited access to formal training and exhibition opportunities, she had to carve a path through it all while defying expectations through subject matter. Editor: I suppose a wall and baskets do have different connotations based on your socio-political leanings. But for me this speaks more to how much meaning you can find in what is deemed, mundane or worthless. It's less about the wall keeping people out and more about using that simple shape and plane for composition. Curator: That tension between institutional constraint and individual creative expression—that is the spark, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: I couldn’t agree more. It's the same for me; the more things try to limit my expression the more freedom I find inside myself to combat it. And that's why it still moves me to this day.