The Disciples at Emmaus 1763 - 1764

Editor: This is Fragonard’s "The Disciples at Emmaus," an etching at the Harvard Art Museums. It's quite small, and the lines seem so immediate and full of energy. What strikes you about the process of its making? Curator: The rapid lines and seeming spontaneity hint at the speed of production, essential for printmaking’s role in disseminating images to a wider, consuming public. How does the etching technique itself—the acid biting into the metal—alter our understanding of Fragonard's labor versus, say, painting? Editor: That's interesting. It feels less precious, maybe more accessible due to the printmaking process itself? I hadn't considered the implications of mass reproduction. Curator: Precisely. The very materiality of the print, the paper, the ink, connects it directly to networks of production and consumption in 18th-century Europe. It moves art from the sole domain of the elite to a broader social sphere.