Geitenbok, vijf schapen en een lam 1809 - 1859

Pieter de Goeje created this drawing of a goat, five sheep and a lamb at an unknown date, using graphite. The image evokes a certain ideal of rural life. It recalls the period after the end of the Napoleonic wars when the Netherlands was developing an artistic identity based around the visual codes of the Dutch Golden Age. De Goeje was part of the Felix Meritis society in Amsterdam, an institution dedicated to the promotion of arts and sciences that played a role in shaping that new cultural identity. There is nothing particularly controversial about this drawing but one can read it as a conservative statement reflecting the tastes of a rising bourgeois class who looked to art for reassurance and moral guidance. To fully understand this image, we would want to know more about the artist's affiliations and the venues in which he exhibited. Research into the archives of the Felix Meritis society might also shed light on the cultural values that informed its artistic program.