Portrait of a Man with Brown Hair n.d.

Gilles Louis Chrétien made this portrait using a physionotrace, a now little-known printmaking process popular in the late 1700s. The physionotrace involved a mechanical device to trace a sitter's profile, and the image was then reduced and etched onto a copper plate. Look closely, and you can almost see the ghost of the machine at work. Because the image was standardized and relatively quick to produce, it was an appealing alternative to painted portraits for the rising middle class. It democratized image-making by making portraits accessible to people beyond the aristocracy. The detailed lines and shading showcase Chrétien’s skill in translating a mechanical tracing into an expressive print. In its time, this method of production blurred the lines between craft, technology, and art, reflecting broader shifts in labor, class, and consumption. The physionotrace reveals how the intersection of materials, techniques, and social context can deepen our understanding of art history.