Register voor de prenten 1-24 en A-E in de serie: Bombario Actionist en de Geest van Esopus, 1720 1718 - 1720

This is a register for prints, made around 1720 by an anonymous artist. It’s a modest object, paper printed with columns of text in Dutch and French, bound in a simple volume. What really interests me is the process of production. We are seeing the early stages of mass media. The printing press allowed for the relatively quick reproduction of images and texts. This register is essentially an index to a series of satirical prints called "Bombario Actionist en de Geest van Esopus.” Consider the social context: this was a time of political and economic upheaval. The prints and this register would have been produced for a public eager to consume visual satire, offering commentary on the events of the day. The labor is embedded not just in the artist's original designs but in the anonymous hands setting type, running the press, and binding the book. These processes democratized images, and the ideas they carried.