Portret van Giuseppe Marchi 1761

Jonathan Spilsbury made this mezzotint portrait of Giuseppe Marchi, and it was published in 1782. Mezzotint is an intaglio printmaking process that relies on the roughening of a copper plate to hold ink. Here, you can see the results of Spilsbury using a tool called a rocker to create a fine burr across the surface. The subtlety of tone that results is well-suited to portraiture. It allowed prints to approximate the look of paintings, a very profitable activity in the 18th century as the middle class rose and created a demand for images. While Spilsbury’s print bears the name of a painter – Reynolds – the real work was Spilsbury’s alone. He had to have considerable skill as a technician to produce this image. Next time you see a print, consider the labor involved. It’s not simply a reproduction, but an act of translation, where one artist interprets another’s work through a complex mechanical process.