Portret van Abraham Bowier 1794

Frederic Gijzen made this print of Abraham Bowier in 1794, using engraving. This process involves incising an image onto a metal plate, inking the plate, and then transferring that image to paper through a press. Look closely, and you will see that the image consists entirely of lines. The engraver would have used a tool called a burin to manually cut these lines into the metal. This was skilled, painstaking work. The varying thickness and density of the lines create the illusion of tone and volume. Prints like this one played an important role in the 18th century, circulating images and ideas to a wide audience, a function now largely taken over by photography. Note the inscription below the portrait, which describes Bowier as a preacher in The Hague, praising his eloquence and fidelity. This reveals the print's function: to commemorate and disseminate Bowier's image as a figure of religious authority. Considering the labor involved, and its role in communicating social status, this print gives us a sense of how images were carefully crafted and disseminated in the pre-digital age.