Harriët van Reek discovered the 26 characters in one of the workshops adjacent to the Palace garden, which no one had ever entered before her. In this drawing, she reconstructs how she found them in this laboratory-like space.
Were experiments done here? Were the characters subjected to all sorts of trials, tested for specific qualtities? Or was this rather the craft room, where a variety of materials were tinkered with to arrive at new letter forms, a space of discovery where new forms continually emerge to enrich the existing set?
She caught a glimpse of what probably had to be the Governor, and who else was there in the room, his wife? The Palace cat scurried away when she discovered Van Reek. In terror, she knocked over a pile of letterforms after which she lashed out.
