Drie putti met een bloemenmand en vlinders 1750

Jan Wandelaar made this etching of three putti with a flower basket and butterflies in 1735. Putti, the chubby winged infants you see here, were a popular motif in the art of the 17th and 18th centuries. This print was made in the Netherlands, in an era dominated by the Dutch East India Company and its global trade routes. These putti, with their garland of flowers, embody a vision of carefree abundance, which conveniently obscured the brutality of colonial extraction. Wandelaar’s print, made for circulation, is typical of the art market of his time, which provided a livelihood for artists who were not part of the elite. Art historians look into the circulation of these kinds of images to understand the relationship between the wealthy patrons and the printmakers, many of whom depended on the patronage system to survive.