Enlivened by sweat and the vigorous motions of scrubbing and polishing, several hairs spring out from the washerwoman's bonnet in Geertruydt Roghman's engraving A Woman Cleaning (ca. 1640). Each hair is individually legible, nobly offset by a clear windowpane whose spotless-ness is probably the result of her fastidiousness. Years of cleaning have formed her sturdy ankles. Hers is a working-class body from one of the world's first sophisticated capitalist societies: the Dutch Republic. The fruits of her labor— gleaming pieces of metalware—rest in the foreground, announcing her skill. Appropriately, we cannot see her face. Then, as now, house cleaners were magicians—they would make dirt disappear, then themselves.
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