The Lace Maker 1880 - 1882

Otto Henry Bacher created this etching, "The Lace Maker," using a metal plate and acid to incise the image. Notice how the density of the lines defines the shadowy interior, and the faces of the figures. This is a laboring-class family, gathered in a humble interior; one woman works at the painstaking craft of lace making while another tends to what appears to be a cooking pot, with three children at their feet. The etching medium itself, which is capable of rendering infinite detail and texture, is here deployed to depict a scene of domestic labor. This connects directly to the work being done by the seated woman – slow, deliberate, and requiring complete attention. Bacher has taken a process associated with industrial printmaking and applied it to the image of pre-industrial, hand-made lace. Thinking about the convergence of the hand-made with industrial modes of production helps us appreciate the complex ways in which artists confront the realities of labor, class, and economic change.