Schoenenverkoper 1660

Giuseppe Maria Mitelli made this etching, "Schoenenverkoper", whose title translates from Dutch to "Shoe Seller". Mitelli was a printmaker and painter in Bologna, Italy, during the Baroque era, and the image presents us with a window into 17th-century street life. Here, the shoe seller is a man marked by his economic circumstances. His bare foot and simple garb speak to a life of manual labor, and he carries his wares, a collection of simple shoes, upon his shoulders. What does it mean to make visible the laboring classes? To give them representation, if not necessarily agency? Mitelli's print invites us to consider the lives of those who lived on the margins of society, and the cultural values we place on labor, class, and even the simple, everyday objects that shape our lives. It asks us to reflect on the dignity and humanity of all individuals, regardless of their social standing.