Penny prints

Donation by Aernout and Leny Borms-Koop
Acquisition 2007
Date Ca. 1730-1900 151
Size varieert
Signature Borms

In December 2007, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek received a very extraordinary donation of more than thousand penny prints. Penny prints were printed for centuries in countless variations and can be considered as the least expensive print work for all strata of society. They often commemorated important and unusual events, such as disasters, crimes and battles.
A popular subject for these prints was the henpecked husband Jan de Wasser. The Borms-Koop collection contains nine different versions of this story of the social order turned upside-down. These stories show that, long before the first wave of feminism, men and women fought over who was to be the boss in the home. In the De Wasscher family, it was undoubtedly the wife, Griet, who held the reins. The anonymous author of this print immediately sets the tone: 'Jan de Wasser wants a wife / but I fear he'll regret it for the rest of his life'. Jan and Griet 'trade the stable / for the kitchen table'. Jan performs all sorts of unmanly tasks, such as household chores and child care. He often takes it to extremes: 'Jan suffers the pain of childbirth / which gives his wife no end of mirth'.

Apparently, no explanation is necessary for the eighteenth-century prints; every reader would recognise that this 'comic strip avant la lettre' depicted a world gone mad. In the nineteenth century, the text provides more didactic content: 'let's be honest, it suits your wife / to wash the dishes all her life.' The different versions clearly show how the public's sensibilities changed over time. While an early print caption states: 'Jan sits patiently and sighs / while his baby shits and cries', later prints have the more modest caption: 'Children, can you guess / what the baby's doing next?' In the eighteenth century, Jan is rewarded for his loyal devotion with a sailing trip with Griet to the Volewijk in Amsterdam. The woodcut depicts the gallows field in the distance, with corpses hanging above the boneyard, where the corpses of the condemned were left to decay and be devoured by birds. The text makes no reference to the scene. Later prints do not depict the gallows, which were dismantled in 1795.

(JK)