Ornament met terrine met kroon 1683 - 1733

Bernard Picart made this ornament with terrine and crown sometime between 1693 and 1733, using etching technique. This kind of ornamental design epitomizes the aesthetic preferences of European courts and wealthy elites of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Note the fusion of classical motifs – the grotesque masks – with overtly regal symbols like the crown, along with the general emphasis on symmetry and balance. These highly conventional visual codes were used to signal social status and political power. Picart was a Frenchman working in the Netherlands, and the institutions that supported artists like him, such as the French Royal Academy, were often bound up with those same power structures. Historians examine prints such as these alongside other kinds of historical evidence in order to understand the ways that cultural institutions are tied to social norms.