Aanbidding door de herders before 1612

This print, "Adoration of the Shepherds," was made by an anonymous artist. Prints like this one are so interesting from a material perspective. They were often made in multiples and dispersed widely, so they're intimately tied to the development of capitalism. This image was produced by incising lines into a metal plate, inking the surface, and then running it through a press to transfer the image onto paper. Look closely, and you’ll see that the varying depths and densities of the lines create the illusion of light, shadow, and texture, giving volume to the figures of the shepherds and angels. The printing process itself suggests something about the social context in which this image was made. It's not a unique, handcrafted object, but something designed for relatively mass production. We can consider the labor involved: the skilled artisan who cut the plate, the printer who ran off the copies, and the distributors who brought the image to a broad public. Thinking about these aspects of production helps us understand this print not just as a religious image, but also as a commodity in a rapidly changing world.