Ouderlingen voor de rechter 1645 - 1646

This is an engraving by Christoffel van Sichem II, made sometime before his death in 1658. It's an image of elders at court, made using a painstaking process: lines are incised into a block of wood, which is then inked and printed. The density of lines speaks to the labor involved. Notice the artist's facility with a burin, the tool that creates those lines. He varies the marks to create a full tonal range, describing the figures, architecture and drapery with real skill. Engraving like this was a crucial technology for the distribution of information in early modern Europe. It allowed images, like this depiction of elders at court, to be reproduced and disseminated widely. In this way, craft knowledge combined with a new kind of industrial production. Prints were relatively inexpensive and brought art within reach of a broad public. Appreciating the ingenuity and labor that went into this print reminds us of the value and impact of what we now call “the crafts.”