Portret van Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner 1818 - 1832

Anton Wachsmann created this portrait of Heinrich Gottlieb Tzschirner using the technique of engraving, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. Engraving is an intaglio process. A design is cut into a flat surface – usually a metal plate – and then the incised lines are filled with ink and printed. Here, the linear quality of the engraving lends itself well to rendering Tzschirner’s features. The tight hatch marks create subtle gradations of light and shadow. Consider the labor involved in this kind of image-making. Each line had to be carefully cut by hand, and in reverse. The finished print could then be reproduced many times over, disseminating Tzschirner's image widely. In that sense, it's an early form of mechanical reproduction, making images more widely available. Looking closely at works like this reminds us that the circulation of images has always been tied to technologies and to the social dynamics of labor. Far from being immaterial, images are always rooted in material processes.