Fotoreproductie van een gravure van De slachting der onschuldigen door Paulus Pontius, naar het schilderij door Peter Paul Rubens before 1858

Jean Louis Bargignac made this photogravure of “The Massacre of the Innocents” after a painting by Peter Paul Rubens. It depicts the biblical story of King Herod ordering the execution of all young male children in an attempt to kill the infant Jesus. Rubens, living in the Spanish Netherlands, painted this subject during the 17th century when the Eighty Years' War was raging. The war was between the Netherlands and Spain, and the Spanish troops were known for their brutality towards civilians, so viewers would have understood the painting in this contemporary context. Bargignac’s 19th-century reproduction speaks to the longer history of human violence, but also the history of painting and printmaking as institutions. To better understand images like these, art historians rely on archival research, studying not only the lives and careers of artists but also the political and cultural context in which they worked.