Brief aan Pieter Verloren van Themaat Possibly 1860 - 1869

This letter was written in Amsterdam on September 17th, 1860 by Nicolaas Pieneman. It’s made of paper, likely a relatively high-quality stock for the time, and written with iron gall ink, which was the standard for penmanship. The letter isn't just a message; it's an artifact deeply embedded in the social and economic practices of its time. The quality of the paper and ink speak to a certain level of affluence and formality. Calligraphy was a valued skill, reflecting the writer's education and social standing. But beyond the individual, we see the infrastructure of communication – paper production, the ink-making trade, and a postal system that enabled such correspondence to circulate. Consider the labor involved: from the rag pickers gathering materials for paper, to the scribes maintaining the flow of information. This letter embodies a network of human effort, a tangible reminder of the ways in which communication itself is a product of collective work. It pushes us to think about the social and economic relationships that underpin even the simplest forms of exchange.