Jonge arbeider op klompen, met een schort voor 1876

Auguste Danse made this etching of a young worker in 1876. The boy stands in clogs and an apron, perhaps an apprentice. He stares off in the distance, away from us and whatever work he may be doing. The work was made in Belgium, a country which, at the time, was undergoing rapid industrialization. Artworks like this one are often documents of sweeping social change. This etching could remind us of work by artists such as Courbet and Millet, who insisted on the value and dignity of laborers in mid-nineteenth-century France. But this image may also remind us of something darker, a world in which child labor was common. Further research into Danse's work and the social history of Belgium might help us to determine the artist's intent. Was he making a political point, or simply capturing a scene from everyday life? Art history can help us to pose the right questions.