Horizontale cartouche met twee compartimenten 1657 - 1685

Curator: Let's discuss this horizontal cartouche from the Rijksmuseum's collection. This engraving, created anonymously between 1657 and 1685, offers an intriguing example of Baroque ornamentation. Editor: My first thought is how strange this visual language feels today—decorative but unsettling. There's an underlying tension, perhaps because of those semi-human figures struggling to hold up... well, what *are* they holding up? Curator: Indeed. The cartouche itself provides empty spaces designed for inscriptions or heraldic devices. Those hybrid cherubs you mention—part human, part fish—support these spaces, suggesting burdens of nobility, history, or legacy being upheld through generations. Their forms echo mythical figures. Editor: So, the vacant central spaces become canvases for power, both material and symbolic. That the bodies involved are monstrous infants raises all kinds of issues, no? Are we seeing the inheritance of power as an unnatural act, one foisted upon those ill-equipped to carry it? Is this some kind of Baroque commentary on privilege? Curator: I see the reading of discomfort and, in your words, unnatural inheritance. Consider the serpent-like bodies coiling back toward their points of origin. What is cast back reveals where and what it comes from—so it has an uncomfortable truthfulness. Beyond just social station, the image is designed to provoke thought regarding the source and application of power, perhaps mirroring anxieties of the time. It echoes older visual systems while inventing new ways to interpret its classical elements. Editor: Right. It’s a tension between holding up these ornate frames with classical, codified language, while the carriers—these strange children—look deeply out of place in this highly mannered vision. It definitely highlights a discord between image and content, creating a compelling dissonance that invites us to dissect what, and whom, it actually props up. Curator: A productive tension. Perhaps, like all successful emblems, it retains an opacity that transcends its own era. Editor: Absolutely. Even as a purely ornamental engraving, it still makes a provocative claim on our attention, demanding we think critically about legacy.