Alexander de Grote als een van de negen helden 1621 - 1636

Willem de Passe made this engraving of Alexander the Great, one of the Nine Worthies, in the early 17th century. The lines you see are the result of a burin, a steel tool used to carve into a copper plate. The engraver's skill lies in their ability to translate tone into a language of marks, a coding of light and shadow. Look at the hatching on Alexander's face, or the stippling in the background, this is a testament to the amount of labor involved. Prints like these were commercial products, intended for wide distribution. De Passe was part of a sophisticated network of printmakers, publishers, and distributors. In a sense, engravings like this were the social media of their time. Considering the materiality and the processes of production allows us to appreciate the economic and social context in which it was made, and the skilled labor that went into it.