Collage van uitgeknipte prenten geplakt op een albumblad van blauw papier c. 1680 - 1720

Curator: Take a moment to observe this piece, titled "Collage van uitgeknipte prenten geplakt op een albumblad van blauw papier," a collage of prints on paper dating from about 1680 to 1720. It resides here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It has this quirky, scrapbook feel about it. Like someone was cutting up fashion plates or history paintings and pasting them for fun. The blue background paper gives it this unusual coolness, separating the disparate figures, fashion and events. Curator: Yes, there's an amateur quality to it, yet the individual engravings, were skilled. The figures, seemingly culled from diverse printed sources, speak to the era's fascination with portraying rank and status. Each print may have circulated independently for an elite clientele to show off current styles. Editor: Interesting you mention circulation, because as I'm seeing it, its a tangible demonstration of the widespread nature of the printing press, this assemblage turns waste material into something almost valuable, and quite novel. One almost doesn't expect such intricate labor for essentially ephemera, destined to become scrap, to begin with. Curator: Precisely! It demonstrates how printed imagery saturated visual culture, becoming a resource in its own right, and, more broadly, printmakers secured the Baroque’s aesthetic influence via their engraving tools. Editor: Absolutely, the material tells a social history: What kind of household generated waste paper of such fineness? What are the implied class dynamics and expectations here? I’m just taken by the sheer physicality of it, these paper scraps becoming a statement piece. Curator: The collage can also be considered an act of appropriation. It raises questions of authorship, originality, and how images gain new meanings when placed in new contexts. Editor: Right! It seems we often assume labor to be bound by the creation of a *new* product, or *new* form of expression. To repurpose is considered "lesser than," but its clear here that this type of labor actually reveals just how entrenched class relations were at this time. I keep wondering if, today, this would trend as upcycling... Curator: Well, whatever its possible relation to today’s world, it has definitely prompted us both to rethink and re-evaluate the social context and material of collage. Editor: Definitely, It shows how much an understanding of the production context can deepen the story of even this humble scrapbook!