Zoenend paar 1650 - 1750

Editor: This is “Zoenend paar,” or “Kissing Couple,” an etching made sometime between 1650 and 1750 by an anonymous artist. It feels very intimate and opulent at the same time. What story do you think the materials and production tell here? Curator: The fact that this scene of implied luxury and intimacy is reproduced as a print, an etching, immediately suggests a wider distribution and accessibility than, say, an oil painting. What impact do you think that had on its contemporary viewers? Editor: It’s like early mass media! It makes you wonder who the consumers of such erotic imagery were during the Baroque period. Was it exclusively for the upper classes, or did these prints circulate more broadly through society? Curator: Precisely! And look at the labor involved in creating this. The artist, likely a skilled artisan, carefully etched the image onto a metal plate. The materials—the copper plate, the inks, the paper—would have been commodities traded within a specific economic system. Does that affect your reading of the artwork? Editor: Definitely. Knowing about the material conditions of its production makes it less about individual artistic genius and more about the societal factors that allowed for its creation and distribution. It’s not just about the image, but about the entire process. Curator: Exactly. This print embodies both artistry and industry, blurring the lines between “high art” and “craft.” Now consider, how does this production relate to other aspects of baroque material culture like fashion, furniture, and architecture? Editor: So the value isn't only in what the art depicts but what went into the making of art and what kind of economy enabled the whole manufacturing and trading operations of art itself. Curator: Exactly! We begin to consider what value society then placed on erotic images, and the hands that helped to bring such images to the viewer.