Inrit van een groot dorpshuis, van de binnenhof uit gezien 1792 - 1868

Curator: Looking at this drawing by Pierre Luc Charles Cicéri, titled "Entrance to a Large Village House, Seen from the Courtyard," I'm struck by the sheer sense of quietude. It feels… contemplative. Editor: It's interesting you say that, because to me, the immediate impression is one of the ordinary. There's a sense of unpretentious practicality in its simple lines. This entryway clearly functions, it is worn. It evokes the lived realities of agrarian life, rendered in muted tones of pencil and wash. Curator: Precisely. Cicéri captures a fleeting moment, something almost missed in the everyday bustle, in its historical context during the late 18th to mid 19th century. What strikes me is the way light dances within the archway, framing a hazy, indistinct scene beyond, giving us only a sense of the hustle and bustle without any visual confirmation, triggering the viewers sense of adventure to make their way though the passageway. It’s almost a drawing about what isn't shown. Editor: Well, that speaks to the socio-economic position of architectural drawing at the time. Such pieces circulated as a public good to elevate certain notions of community. He could be seen to play a crucial role in visualizing this notion of what constituted "a home", for his contemporaries. In particular, how space was perceived at the threshold. Curator: And this emphasis also is clearly embedded within his academic training, something that should also be considered given the detail within the brickwork and light that I previously mentioned. Editor: Yet for all that technique, the drawing manages to evade rigidity, inviting instead a certain warmth into it. Its incompleteness allows us, as contemporary viewers, to occupy and imbue that quiet space with something personal, perhaps the sounds of farmhands preparing for a new harvest? Curator: In viewing “Entrance to a Large Village House,” what I’m left with is Cicéri’s ability to invite us into not just a space, but also into a feeling, an echo of lives lived in rhythm with the land. It asks us what "home" could even mean for ourselves. Editor: For me, this simple pencil sketch opens up into wider societal notions about labour and leisure during its production era. In a way it has made me reassess our tendency to idealize quaint and curious spots that actually formed part of larger power dynamics within Dutch society.