Fotoreproductie van vijf schilderijen c. 1872 - 1882

This is a photographic reproduction of five paintings, made by Johannes Jaeger, sometime before his death in 1908. The photograph is one page in what seems to be an illustrated catalogue. What we have here is a documentary trace of the art market in the late nineteenth century. It speaks to the growing commodification of art, and the systems of circulation required to support it. Consider the layers of mediation: paintings, reproduced as photographs, bound in a catalogue, and encountered here as a digital image. What do we lose, and what do we gain, at each stage of this process? To fully understand this image, a social historian would need to research the role of illustrated catalogues in the late 19th century art world. Resources like period newspapers and auction records will shed light on this intriguing cultural artifact. The meaning of art is contingent on the social and institutional contexts that it inhabits.