Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset 1803

Augustin de Saint-Aubin created this print of Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset in France in the latter half of the 18th century. It's an etching, a medium well suited to the production of multiple images. The print is a portrait of a celebrated comic playwright, a member of the French academy, neatly framed in an oval. The image speaks to the social and cultural importance of writers at this time. The print medium itself helped to democratize images, and in turn, ideas. Prints such as this one were a way of disseminating images of important figures to a wider audience. Prints are a vital resource for historians, because we can study them to understand more about the circulation of imagery and information in this period. They help us to understand what kinds of people were celebrated, and how these images reinforced social values.