Portret van Sebald Godfried Manger 1794

This print of Sebald Godfried Manger was made by Jeremias Snoek, and probably dates to around 1794. The medium is printmaking, and the image is made from tiny dots and lines, a process called stipple engraving. Consider the work involved. Each mark was painstakingly etched into a copper plate by hand, through a layer of wax. Then, acid would have bitten into the exposed metal, creating recessed lines to hold the ink. The plate would have been wiped clean, inked, and then pressed onto paper. It’s an indirect process, requiring immense skill, and each print would take time to produce. It’s no surprise that the clothing is rendered so meticulously - in this period, textiles and garments were still largely made by hand. Snoek has taken care to represent the status and profession of his sitter. The very labor-intensive process of making prints like these speaks volumes about the value placed on portraiture. We tend to think of prints as cheap multiples, but in this instance, the labor, skill, and materials involved suggest a valuation closer to that of painting. This fact challenges our received ideas about the hierarchy of art forms.