Gezicht in een straat met op de hoek de prentwinkel van Hieronymus Cock 1601

This print of a street view, including Hieronymus Cock's print shop, was made by Johannes or Lucas van Doetechum, using an engraving technique. The materiality of this print - the thinness of the paper, the fineness of the engraved line - speaks to the networks of commerce and the skilled labor that made prints such a popular medium. Engraving, of course, is an indirect process. The artist would have used a tool called a burin to cut lines into a copper plate, which was then inked and printed onto paper. Consider the labour involved, from the mining of the copper to the making of the paper. The very act of capturing this street scene was tied to the commercial activities that animated it. It is also interesting to consider this image as being a commodity in itself, the very thing that was being sold inside Cock's shop. By focusing on the materials and processes behind this seemingly simple image, we can appreciate its significance as a product of a complex web of social and economic relations.