Illustration til Billeder og Vers af Julius Exner og Christian Winther 1862

This illustration was made by Julius Exner to accompany a book of poems, using the printmaking technique of etching. To create this image, the artist would have coated a metal plate with a waxy, acid-resistant substance called a ground. Then, using a sharp needle, he scratched away lines, exposing the metal beneath. When the plate was submerged in acid, these lines were eaten away, creating grooves. The depth and width of the lines would determine how much ink they held, and thus how dark they appeared in the final print. Look closely, and you can see that the image is built up entirely from these thin, incised lines. The fineness of this network gives a sense of the labor involved in the print’s production, and also the social context that Exner was keen to depict: a woman, perhaps a farmer’s wife, bringing home the harvest with her goose in tow. Paying attention to the materials and making of this image, helps us to understand the artist's attention to both the social status and aesthetic qualities of the artwork.