Heilige Familie met de jonge Johannes de Doper en engelen 1700 - 1760

Giovanni Antonio Faldoni made this print, "Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist and Angels," sometime between 1690 and 1770, using engraving. Engraving is an intaglio process. The artist uses a tool called a burin to manually cut lines into a metal plate. Ink is then applied to the entire surface and then wiped away, leaving ink only in the incised lines. This allows the image to be transferred to paper under high pressure in a printing press. The process demands enormous skill and control of the engraver’s hand. Faldoni’s expertise is on full display here; he coaxes a full range of tonal effects from simple parallel lines. Look closely and you can see where he has built up dense areas of hatching, and others that are more open and light. Prints like this one played a key role in circulating images widely at a time before photography. Think of it as a form of proto-mass production. This engraving is not just an image, but also a record of skillful labor, connecting artmaking to a much wider world of work.