Maraboe 1864 - 1936

Jan van Essen made this etching called Maraboe at an unknown date. Van Essen lived through an era when colonial powers extracted resources, enslaved people, and violently disrupted ecologies across the African continent. The marabou stork, native to Africa, is here presented in captivity. The animal's stooped posture and the stark enclosure behind it evoke a sense of confinement. This print invites us to consider the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, the captor and the captive. Is this image a commentary on colonial practices? Or is it simply an innocent portrayal of an exotic bird? Perhaps van Essen was interested in the marabou as a symbol of the exotic 'other'. Whatever the intention, the print resonates with the complex history of imperialism. It asks us to consider the gaze through which we perceive animals and people, and the power dynamics inherent in that act of viewing.