Lottery van kleyne beeldekens / Loterie aux petites images 1856 - 1900

Curator: What a wonderfully strange little universe, isn't it? Like a dream dreamt by a mischievous bookworm. Editor: Indeed! This is "Lottery van kleyne beeldekens / Loterie aux petites images," a print by Glenisson & Zonen, made sometime between 1856 and 1900. It’s made of etchings and engravings. At first glance, it looks like a bizarre bingo card. There’s a playful absurdity to it that’s incredibly captivating. How do you even begin to interpret a work like this? Curator: It's a lottery of images! What prizes! Well, what do *you* make of that layout, all those numbered vignettes? Doesn't it hint at how stories were consumed? Before television, before even really reliable photography for the masses? This sheet would be pure entertainment – and probably a learning tool, too. The vignettes offer up little narratives… fleeting moments of life captured and miniaturized. Editor: It's like a visual encyclopedia, but far more whimsical. I can imagine someone making up stories to match each image. Some of them seem to hint at proverbs or popular tales, but most seem so wonderfully random! The imagery jumps between the banal and the absurd so rapidly. I am fascinated by this kind of "randomness" for it seems completely detached from the kind of “narrative art” we often find from the 19th century. Do you see the work fitting neatly in this category or are there any clues that place it firmly within 19th-century sensibilities? Curator: Precisely! It dances between meaning and nonsense. The structure, the grid format is what truly binds it to the nineteenth century sensibilities of instruction through light amusement! Think about the explosion of print culture at that time and these lottery images had to be understood widely through a network of associations both spoken and visual! A way to democratize stories, if you will! It feels like some forgotten folk art suddenly unearthed. Editor: I never thought of it that way. Seeing this more of as "democratization" of imagery opens up so many interesting points for understanding this form and print medium! I was too absorbed in trying to decipher narratives. Thank you for helping me shift perspective. Curator: And thank you for noticing the sheer *joy* in this, because isn’t that, ultimately, what any great work offers us?