Reproductie van een prent van vogels bij het water, met het gedicht Août van François Coppée, door Hector Giacomelli before 1876

This print, after a design by Hector Giacomelli, was made by Paul Dalloz, and includes a poem by François Coppée. The key is the photographic process used to make it: photogravure. Unlike other printing techniques, photogravure can reproduce the fine details and continuous tones of a photograph. It begins with a copper plate, coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue, exposed to a positive transparency of the image, and then etched in an acid bath. The etching depth varies according to the amount of light received, creating an image capable of holding ink. What Dalloz did was to make the labor of etching – normally done by hand, with variable results – uniform and repeatable. It’s no accident that this technique emerged during the Industrial Revolution, when the need for mass production was influencing the art world. Processes like photogravure blur the lines between artistry and mechanical reproduction, reminding us that the history of art is also a history of work.