Studieblad met drie vrouwenhoofden en een man met helm 1695

This is a study sheet with three women’s heads and a man with a helmet, made by Pieter van den Berge, likely in the late 17th or early 18th century. It’s made using engraving, a printmaking technique that involves incising lines into a metal plate, inking the plate, and then pressing it onto paper. The process itself is labor-intensive. The artist would have needed skill and precision to create the fine lines and subtle gradations of tone that give the faces their form. This wasn’t just a mechanical process, but one demanding artistic judgement. In van den Berge’s time, prints like these were a key way of disseminating images and ideas widely. They democratized visual culture, making art accessible to a broader audience beyond the wealthy elite. The print could be reproduced and distributed on a relatively large scale. It speaks to a society increasingly engaged with visual information. So while the drawing itself might seem like a traditional artwork, it’s also deeply tied to the emerging culture of mass production and consumption.