De ondankbare sultan 1881

This print, titled “The Ungrateful Sultan,” was made by De Ruyter & Meijer, using ink on paper. Though its date is unknown, we can still consider it as a product of industrial printmaking, which gained momentum in the 19th century. This mode of production allowed for images to be widely distributed and consumed, turning people and stereotypes into commodities. The prints themselves are simple, but the processes needed to create them involve multiple types of labor. There is the hand of the artist, of course, but also the less-visible work of typesetters, press operators, and distributors. The visual style is also telling. The figures are rendered with bold outlines and flat colors, a technique that mimics the look of woodcut illustrations, but produced much faster. This shows the tension between craft production and mass production. By recognizing the material reality of the print, and its social and economic context, we can understand this image as a product of its time, deeply enmeshed in the era’s emerging dynamics of global trade and cultural exchange.