Inhoudsopgave en toelichting bij een serie van zes landschapsprenten 1824

This is a title page and explanation for a set of six landscape prints, made by Philipp Veith in 1824. It would have been printed using moveable type, a technology developed centuries earlier, but that was still fundamental to the distribution of images and ideas in the 19th century. Consider the labor involved: each letterform was individually cast, composed, inked, and pressed onto the page. The prints themselves, advertised here, would also have involved considerable handwork, likely through etching or engraving techniques. Look closely, and you can imagine the fine motor skills, the careful application of acid, the repetitive actions required to build up an image line by line. Printing, even with the advent of industrialization, remained a human-scaled activity. The scale of this particular example is intimate, intended for handling and close reading. It’s a reminder that even in an era of mass production, craft values persisted, shaping the look and feel of everyday life. The information it contains, when combined with the prints, invites us to consider the relationship between text and image, labor and leisure, art and industry.