Kasboekaantekeningen c. 1840 - 1860

This handwritten page of ‘Kasboekaantekeningen’ or ‘Cash Book Notes’ from the Rijksmuseum collection was created by an anonymous artist, at an unknown date. Though its authorship and exact date remain unknown, it is nonetheless an artifact embedded in a specific social and economic context. The spidery handwriting records financial transactions. The columns of figures suggest a society concerned with quantifying the value of different goods. Consider what kind of research would reveal more about the society that produced this document. What goods are mentioned? What do we know about systems of currency at the time it was made? What kind of household or business might have kept such a record? What kind of role might that business have played in the social life of the community? As art historians, our job is to use these visual and textual cues to reconstruct the social and institutional conditions that gave rise to a work like this, revealing its function in a broader social and cultural network.