Gezicht op een rustplaats in het park bij de Overtoom in Amsterdam 1866

This wood engraving by F.L. Meijer depicts a rest stop in the park by the Overtoom in Amsterdam, sometime in the 1800s. The image was transferred onto a block of wood, likely boxwood, which is dense and ideal for fine detail. A specialist craftsman, W. Hekking Jr., would then have used sharp tools called gravers or burins to carve away the areas that would not receive ink, leaving the design standing in relief. The process is painstaking. Every line, every nuance of light and shadow, is carefully rendered by hand. Look closely, and you can see the marks of the burin, the subtle variations in line weight that give the image its texture and depth. The resulting print suggests not just a scene, but also the labor and skill involved in its making. Consider that this print would have been one of many, produced for mass distribution. The alliance of handcraft and industrial production creates a fascinating tension, one that invites us to consider the social context in which this image was made and circulated.