Juli: een oogstende vrouw 1645

Reinier van Persijn created this engraving, "July: a harvesting woman," likely in the mid-17th century. It's a period that saw the rise of the Dutch Republic, fueled by trade and exploration, but also marked by rigid social hierarchies. This print speaks to prevailing notions of gender roles. We see a woman not as an individual but as an allegory for July, a month associated with harvest and abundance. She is strong, but her strength is tied to her role in agriculture, which underlines the expectation of women’s labor. Meanwhile, the Latin inscription reinforces a classical education available primarily to men of a certain class. The scene evokes a sense of the pastoral, yet it does so through a lens that is very much constructed by the male gaze and elite social standards. What might a woman working in the fields at this time have thought and felt about this image? How do you feel? The print invites us to consider whose stories are told and whose are left out.