Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince de Dombes c. 18th century

Curator: This is Pierre Drevet's portrait of Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Prince de Dombes. I find myself drawn into the dramatic sweep of it. The prince himself is quite dashing, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: He's certainly *something*. But all I see is labor: the engraver's precise, repetitive marks to capture the texture of the armor, the cloth, even the distant battle scene. Hours and hours of work. Curator: It feels like a performance of power and pedigree, doesn't it? I wonder what it meant to be rendered this way, eternally frozen in a moment of command and glory? Editor: Frozen is right. Think of the social context: printmaking democratized images, but this image is clearly meant for a specific class, those who understood these visual cues. Curator: It’s quite something to consider the sheer volume of labor, both in image creation and in its reception by a select few. Editor: Exactly. Next time, perhaps we can contemplate the means of production a bit more and the echoes of artistry.