Letters A, B, C en D 1829 - 1880

Curator: Here we have “Letters A, B, C en D”, a lithograph made between 1829 and 1880 by the firm Joseph Scholz, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It's peculiar... Each letter features a young girl and an animal, but the animal pairings are unexpected. There’s a real oddness to the juxtapositions – a monkey with kittens, a girl with a large dog, almost menacing in scale. The palette feels like it pulls between innocence and disquiet. Curator: The lithograph utilizes those Romanticist visual tropes, evoking a sensibility popular during that period. It would have been targeted to families who were buying educational material for young children. Each vignette, paired with a letter, could instruct moral qualities, and introduce elements from the natural world. Editor: Ah, so the juxtaposition of these relationships provides symbolic weight for what is being communicated, the letter being secondary in its impact? I keep returning to that monkey… it's holding those kittens with a precarious tenderness. What meaning do we find in the interplay of domesticity with the exotic? Curator: Perhaps we find comments on empire. Consider, at the time, a growing fascination with exotic animals mirrored colonial power structures. The dog, in turn, represented qualities like loyalty, vigilance, protection… these could function as allegories for human characteristics seen as favorable at that time in European society. Editor: I find myself looking closely at how each grouping suggests a contained narrative. Take “D”, for example – that confident child atop the dog with hat and whip; that has echoes of self-determination. Are these animals merely stand-ins, allowing Scholz to skirt the edges of acceptable expressions of female agency? Curator: It’s difficult to say without firmer historical records of Scholz’s specific intentions, but looking closely at visual relationships – pose, gesture, light – offers pathways into decoding encoded cultural beliefs. Editor: It certainly prompts many threads to explore! These glimpses into constructed animal-child interactions allow us to ask probing questions about both history, representation and what this form offers to contemporary viewing. Curator: A wonderful reminder of how we can approach a single piece!