Reproductie van een gravure van een portret van Hendrik van Balen door Paulus Pontius before 1877

This is a reproduction of an engraving of Hendrik van Balen's portrait by Paulus Pontius, made by Joseph Maes in the late 19th or early 20th century. The image has a crispness, a graphic quality entirely due to the process by which it was made. Consider the labor involved; a highly skilled artisan carefully gouging away at a metal plate to create the design. Every line, every area of shading, the very texture of the image, is the result of this direct, physical engagement with the material. The quality of line is determined entirely by the burin in the hand of the engraver. Engraving like this was essential to the development of print culture and the dissemination of images. In the absence of photography, it allowed portraits and other artworks to be circulated widely. The relationship between art and commerce has always been complex, but this print underscores just how deeply entwined they can be. Rather than seeing it as merely a reproduction, we might recognize the graphic print as a vital part of the art ecosystem.