Jongen en meisje met een schoen 1896 - 1937

Dora Struick du Moulin made this drawing of a boy and girl with a shoe with pen and ink. The lines are so precise, yet they capture such a tender moment. You can almost feel the scratch of the pen on the paper. I imagine her, hunched over her desk, carefully rendering the details of their clothes, the way the boy's cap sits on his head, the girl’s ringlets escaping from under her bonnet. There is a definite sense of stillness, but also movement. The boy is crouched down, presenting the shoe, and the girl leans forward, her expression unreadable. What are they thinking? What’s about to happen? It’s a testament to the power of simple lines to tell a story, to evoke emotion, to capture a fleeting moment in time. Struick du Moulin reminds us of the beauty of the everyday, the poetry of childhood, and the magic that can be found in the simplest of things.