Descartes n.d.

Jean-Baptiste de Grateloup created this print of Descartes in France, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. Prints like this one were instrumental in creating a pantheon of great thinkers and cultural figures. The circulation of these images helped to solidify a shared cultural heritage across Europe. Notice the oval frame and the blank space beneath, which would have been inscribed with Descartes’ name. The print is not simply a likeness of a person, but an attempt to create a cultural icon. The image is a window onto the social conditions that shape artistic production, because it was part of a larger project of national and European identity formation that emphasized certain intellectual and cultural figures. These prints were commodities, and they helped to create a market for ideas and images. By consulting sources from the period, such as print catalogs, biographies, and social histories, the historian can better understand how this image functioned in its time, and what it meant to those who consumed it.