Portret van een onbekende vrouw 1831 - 1890

This portrait of an unknown woman was made by Jean Baptiste Pierre Michiels, using the printmaking technique of etching. Look closely, and you can see how the image is built from a multitude of tiny lines, each one bitten into the metal plate by acid. The etcher carefully controls the depth and density of these lines to create subtle gradations of tone. Consider the material process. This is an indirect method: the artist creates the image on a metal plate, which is then inked and printed onto paper. This labor-intensive production is a skilled tradition that belongs to a wider history of creative practices and aesthetics. It is divorced from the immediacy of drawing or painting. Etching allowed for the mass production of images, and was thus tied to wider social issues of labor and consumption. This print gives us a glimpse into the life of an unknown person. It encourages us to recognize value not just in unique artworks but in the skilled labor and material processes behind them.