Portret van Joseph Werner 1755 - 1757

Rudolf Füssli created this print of Joseph Werner sometime in the late 18th century. Here, the artist makes the claim that the sitter is an important person. How does he do this? The most obvious signifier of status here is the elaborate frame, complete with a tasseled curtain, which recalls the kind of painted portraits commissioned by royalty. The horn and leaves below suggest Werner was a man of culture, perhaps a patron of music or the arts. Prints like this were crucial to the development of a pan-European cultural world. In a country such as Switzerland, which was then a loose confederation of cantons, there was no single dominant institution to shape artistic taste. Prints allowed images and ideas to spread across borders, creating a shared visual culture and a sense of national identity. We might turn to sources like letters and newspapers to understand the role of prints in 18th-century society. Art is never made in a vacuum.