Brief aan Jan Hendrik Maschaupt Possibly 1870 - 1871

Curator: Here we have a piece from the Rijksmuseum collection. It's called "Brief aan Jan Hendrik Maschaupt," which translates to "Letter to Jan Hendrik Maschaupt." Adolphe Mouilleron created this drawing, likely sometime between 1870 and 1871, using pen and ink on paper. Editor: It's such a whisper of a thing. It has the ethereal, intimate quality you only get from looking at someone else's mail, like you're seeing a ghost thought. Pale blue paper. Delicate handwriting that almost dissolves before your eyes. Did you have to squint, too? Curator: A little! It is that kind of artwork you almost feel intrusive looking at, like a diary entry you weren't supposed to read. The script really flows, almost like water, and the blue tint in the paper, with the sepia from the ink gives off the melancholy feel of the fin de siècle. Editor: Oh, precisely! And there’s such weight to that era, culturally speaking. Think about all those late 19th-century anxieties that bubbled to the surface. Even something as ostensibly simple as a handwritten letter can hold all of that psychological complexity. This particular image whispers to the idea that intimacy in plain sight somehow seems secretive. Is that just me? Curator: No, I see what you mean. Maybe because we automatically imbue a certain importance or emotion into personal correspondence? I'm so curious who Jan Hendrik Maschaupt was, and what he represented for Mouilleron...it feels very personal. Editor: Absolutely! And given the artistic context of the era, portraiture – even in a letter - wasn’t just about capturing likeness. There's a narrative being built. An entire story, visually. And perhaps that’s why this “letter” has stood the test of time...It still has something to communicate. Curator: So true. It makes me wonder what our emails will say about us in one hundred and fifty years. Editor: That’s something to ponder. Well, I, for one, have so much more appreciation for the piece having examined all its various emotional textures with you today. Thanks.