Anatomie van vrouw met ongeboren baby in de baarmoeder 1757

Thomas Burgess created this mezzotint – a print made from a roughened metal plate – in the late 18th century. The tonal range of mezzotint is what gives this image its striking chiaroscuro. The process begins by uniformly burring a copper plate with a tool called a rocker. This creates countless tiny pits that would print as solid black if inked. The printmaker then works back into this field of darkness, burnishing areas to be lighter. Look closely and you can see the effects of this labor intensive process. The finely worked gradations give volume to the curves of the maternal body and the fetus within. Burgess’s image speaks to the increasing medical understanding of the era, yet its painstaking facture is rooted in older traditions of craft. It prompts us to consider the relationship between scientific progress and hand-made knowledge.