Putto op een schommel 1618 - 1705

This print of putti on a swing was likely made some time ago with a metal plate, acid, and a skilled hand. The fine lines you see are the result of a meticulous process called etching. The artist would have coated a metal plate with a waxy substance, then used a sharp needle to draw this playful scene, exposing the metal underneath. Immersing the plate in acid would then bite into these exposed lines, creating grooves. The deeper the bite, the more ink it holds. After cleaning off the wax, the plate is inked, the surface wiped clean, and then pressed onto paper. The pressure forces the paper into the incised lines, picking up the ink and transferring the image. The character of the line in an etching is quite distinctive; it has a freedom of movement, a scratchiness almost, that you don’t see in other printmaking techniques. Prints like this were relatively affordable, a means to circulate images widely. It's a reminder that even what seems like a precious image has a close relationship to the world of labor and commodity.