Boekenkast met buste 1772 - 1779

Jean Pelletier made this print of a bookcase with bust in Paris. The printmaking process – engraving – is right at the heart of the image. Lines are incised into a metal plate, and ink is then pressed into those lines. The image you see is built entirely from linear marks. Consider the extraordinary discipline and control required to make this image. It gives us a sense of the designer’s aspiration – the bookcase is perfectly symmetrical, an ideal form. We can see that this object would have been expensive to produce. There’s the cost of the materials, of course – fine wood, likely imported. But more than that, there’s the sheer labor. The maker would have been highly skilled, trained for years in a workshop. Even the design itself would have been a mark of status, since literacy and learning were luxuries at this time. All of this adds up to a potent statement about the owner’s wealth and position. This print helps us to understand the material world, and it is tied to wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption.