Portret van Hendrik II van Frankrijk in harnas te paard, naar rechts before 1550

Cornelis Anthonisz. made this woodcut portrait of Hendrik II of France in the mid-16th century. It's a relatively low-tech image. Woodcut is a relief printmaking technique, which involves carving an image into the surface of a block of wood, with ink applied to the remaining raised areas. The block is then pressed onto paper. The texture of the wood grain often comes through. Here, you can see this materiality in the parallel hatching that defines the forms. The artist also added color, probably by hand, after the print was made. Consider the degree of labor involved. First, there's the highly skilled work of carving the block, then the labor of printing, and finally the coloring. Woodcuts like this were relatively cheap to produce and therefore accessible to a broad public, not just the elite. The image thus brings us close to the social and economic realities of art production in the Renaissance. It gives us a glimpse into a world where making was more closely aligned with the pulse of everyday life.