Portret van Jean-Paul de Lillienstedt 1710

Curator: Let’s have a look at this striking engraving from 1710. This is "Portret van Jean-Paul de Lillienstedt" by Pierre Drevet, housed here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Well, hello there, powdered wig! The details are just leaping off the paper. Is that some kind of draped curtain situation framing the subject? I feel a sense of opulence. Curator: Exactly! That drama is quintessential Baroque, no? Drevet was a master of the burin, transforming metal into light and shadow. Just look at the texture he coaxes out of the velvet and, of course, that glorious hair. Editor: And speaking of the velvet, consider what it means to reproduce the *feel* of it through such laborious hand-craft. I wonder about the status of the engraver versus the original painter, the kind of labour, the accessibility of such images and what it represented... it's not simply 'reproduction', right? Curator: Precisely, it is about democratizing art, making images accessible. But more than that, consider the sitter, Lillienstedt. He’s not just anybody; you can sense his prestige in that unflinching gaze, and even the little heraldic device below speaks to dynastic ambition. Editor: It certainly has a gravity. The detail in those inscriptions… were these commissioned widely, these engraved portraits? Sort of a seventeenth-century profile picture update? Curator: Absolutely, these engravings played a huge part in cementing legacies and propagating a specific image of power and authority. I get the sense Drevet saw engraving not just as reproduction, but as an interpretive act. What would he make of selfies, I wonder? Editor: If we consider engraving’s accessibility versus painted portraiture, the sheer repetition involved allows ideas about status to be embedded into material culture – accessible almost to everyone… It really does make you think. I wonder what people make of *our* "portraits" now, eh? Curator: Well, in any case, viewing Drevet's engraving reminds you to look closer, appreciate craft, to think of history in material terms, beyond just faces in powdered wigs.