Stilleven met appels en een deksel 1834 - 1906

This still life with apples and a lid is one of Maria Vos’s sketchbook drawings. Living in the Netherlands in the 1800's, Vos navigated a world where women artists were often confined to domestic subjects. Consider the intimacy of a sketchbook - a space for personal exploration, for working through ideas. Vos's choice to capture everyday objects can be viewed as both an acceptance and a subtle subversion of societal expectations. Through these commonplace objects Vos's work gains its emotional resonance. What does it mean to find beauty and significance in the mundane, and what does it say about the lives of women during this time? Vos seems to ask us to consider the value of the domestic sphere, and the quiet power of a woman's perspective.