Portret van kardinaal Gaetano Fantuzzi, ook bekend als Cajetanus Elephantutius 1759 - 1788

This print of Cardinal Gaetano Fantuzzi, made by Antonio Capellan, likely dates to around 1759. The inscription at the bottom tells us that it was made in Rome, using a process called "chalco-graphia". Today we would call this engraving, or etching. In this technique, the artist would have used a sharp tool to incise lines into a copper plate. That plate would then be inked, and the surface wiped clean, leaving ink only in the etched lines. Finally, it would be pressed onto paper to create the print. What’s so impressive here is the fineness of the lines, which capture the Cardinal’s features in great detail. You can even see the texture of the paper and fabric. The print medium was perfectly suited to the dissemination of images like this. It allowed for relatively quick production, and at a fraction of the cost of a painted portrait. While it may seem far removed from our contemporary digital technologies, this print shares a similar function: to create reproducible images for mass consumption.