Frederik van Eeden schakend met mevrouw Veth-Duits c. 1888 - 1893

Jan Veth rendered this pencil drawing, entitled 'Frederik van Eeden playing chess with Mrs. Veth-Duits', sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The drawing captures a seemingly commonplace scene, but it gently unsettles the traditional representations of gender and intellect. In this depiction, we find a woman engaged in a strategic game, often considered a male domain, challenging the stereotypes of women's intellectual capabilities. There's an emotional subtlety here too. The players are caught in a moment of quiet intensity, their focus palpable, their expressions unreadable. It’s easy to project our own feelings about competition, gender roles, and intellectual prowess onto the scene. Veth, through this drawing, not only documents a moment in time but also subtly invites us to question the societal norms and expectations of his era, revealing the complexity of human interactions beyond the surface.