Portret van Francis Seymour-Haden Possibly 1881 - 1887

This portrait of Francis Seymour-Haden was made by, well, Francis Seymour-Haden, using a printmaking technique called mezzotint. In mezzotint, the artist roughens the entire plate with a tool called a rocker, creating thousands of tiny dots that would print as solid black. The image is then created by selectively burnishing or scraping away the burr, to produce lighter tones. Look closely, and you can see a kind of velvety texture across the surface, an inherent quality of the medium. Mezzotint was particularly popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, because it allowed for subtle gradations of tone, ideal for reproducing paintings. However, it is a laborious process, requiring great skill and patience. Its labor-intensive nature puts it at odds with the efficiencies of industrial production. The beauty of mezzotint lies in its ability to capture light and shadow. It is a reminder that the value of an artwork is not just in its subject, but also in the making. It blurs the boundaries between art and craft.