Oranjeboom te Leerdam, 1793 1793

Editor: This is "Oranjeboom te Leerdam, 1793", an engraving. It feels both celebratory and a little…fortified. There’s a tree laden with oranges, but also a lion with a sword and what looks like cannons. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Ah, it's a layered one, isn't it? I see the Dutch Golden Age pride struggling against winds of change. This image is about loyalty, but also about a certain besieged feeling. I picture the burghers of Leerdam, nervously planting this symbolic tree, desperate to believe in the House of Orange while revolution brewed just over the horizon in France. Editor: So, the oranges aren't just decorative, they are symbols for the House of Orange. Curator: Precisely! And consider that fence, bristling with…are those cannons? It's less a garden party and more a declaration, a defiant claiming of territory. It’s fascinating how hope and fear get intertwined, isn’t it? Makes you wonder what anxieties underpinned all that Golden Age swagger. Editor: It makes you wonder what they were so afraid of, and the presence of that saber tells me, plenty! I wouldn't have picked up on that feeling just looking at it, thank you. Curator: My pleasure.