Vrouw die op een stoel naast een wieg zit 1887 - 1920

Albert Roelofs made this etching, "Woman Sitting in a Chair Next to a Cradle," probably a little after the turn of the century. Look at the dry scratchy lines that form the image. It's so delicate and provisional; you can imagine him scraping away, trying to fix the image, rubbing back, starting again. I wonder what it was like to be Roelofs making this. Was it a scene from his own life, or was he imagining a scene from a novel? What was he thinking as he scratched into the plate? The woman seems lost in thought, maybe tired, watching over the baby in the cradle. There's a tenderness in the way the lines describe the woman's posture, the fall of her dress, the soft shadows around the cradle. Artists are always in conversation with each other across time. Making an etching, with its hesitations and reworkings, is a way of feeling your way through an idea, allowing for multiple readings. It's like life, am I right?