Vrouw aan een ziekbed 1830 - 1904

Curator: What strikes me immediately is the somber tone. There's a quiet sadness emanating from this scene. Editor: That's precisely the atmosphere captured in Edouard Vermorcken's engraving, "Vrouw aan een ziekbed," created sometime between 1830 and 1904. The title translates to "Woman at a sickbed," and you can practically feel the weight of the situation in the rendering. Curator: You certainly can. Look at the lines – so delicate, almost hesitant. The way the light catches the bedsheets...it feels like holding a breath. I wonder about their relationship. Is it a mother and child? Or perhaps two sisters? The detail is lovely. Are those slippers kicked off near the bed? Editor: Those details do speak volumes, don't they? Consider the visual narrative here. Vermorcken presents us with a fairly typical scene from the genre painting tradition. However, we are witnessing something very particular about this interaction, like the socio-political dimensions around women’s health, domesticity, and the constraints they faced both in caring for their loved ones, but also receiving the medical treatment that men got as standard. Curator: It's interesting you mention socio-politics, because I think a lot about the gaze here, too. I think this intimacy has the air of an old memory about it, like someone trying to lovingly put their finger on something so difficult, but necessary, about how we survive the fragility of our bodies. Editor: Exactly! The setting—the sickroom—functions as a kind of microcosm of a society deeply divided along gender lines in its understanding and distribution of health resources. So we look at it, we aren't simply witnessing a scene of private grief, but perhaps a veiled critique of societal inequalities. Curator: I feel humbled standing before it now; thinking of women like these being so selflessly available and vulnerable… It hits you right in the gut! It feels special being allowed a peek into their sacred space, though also unsettling that this would've been, and continues to be, the reality of so many. Editor: It leaves us with more questions than answers, and perhaps, that’s where its power lies. Hopefully, conversations such as this make looking at such delicate and heartbreaking scenes feel worthwhile in helping change inequitable standards.