Koepelkerk op de Botermarkt 1729

Editor: This is "Koepelkerk op de Botermarkt," a 1729 engraving by Daniël Stopendaal, currently held in the Rijksmuseum collection. It's quite a detailed cityscape. What strikes me is the way the church dominates the scene, yet the market around it is so vibrant. What do you see when you look at it? Curator: I'm immediately drawn to the material reality embedded within this print. Stopendaal wasn't just depicting a scene, he was actively participating in a system of production. Consider the paper, the ink, the metal plate he engraved—these weren't neutral materials. They represented specific economic and social relationships. The print medium itself allowed for wider distribution of this image, creating an early form of mass media. Editor: So you're focusing less on the aesthetics and more on the… production of the artwork? Curator: Precisely! The baroque style, for instance, isn't just about ornate decoration. It's also about the labour and resources needed to create that effect. How did the conditions of artistic production—the availability of materials, the workshop practices, the patronage system—shape what Stopendaal could and couldn’t achieve? The subject here, this architecture of the Dutch Golden Age, wouldn’t be captured in the same way, I suggest, were it a drawing intended for a singular client’s eye. It changes its economic power with the multiple prints made from the plate. What do you think? Editor: That's a compelling point. I was so caught up in the imagery, I didn't consider the labor involved or how prints democratized access to art in a way that paintings couldn’t. I will definitely consider how distribution played a role when looking at this work in the future. Curator: Exactly, shifting the focus from the "what" to the "how" opens up new ways to think about the function of art.