Portret van Jacob Willemsz. van Veen 1871

Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart created this portrait of Jacob Willemsz. van Veen as an engraving, a printmaking technique that has a long and storied institutional history. The image itself creates meaning through its visual codes, cultural references, and historical associations. Engraving had been a well-established technique since the fifteenth century and was especially popular in the Netherlands, where van Veen was from. Jacquemart made this portrait much later, possibly in France. It is not necessarily clear if it comments on the social structures of its own time or is self-consciously conservative or progressive. The engraving medium does suggest something about how artists were beginning to engage with the history of art. The historian's role is to interpret art by using research resources to understand it better. As you can see, the meaning of art is contingent on social and institutional context.