Intocht van koningin Isabella van Beieren in Parijs 1729 - 1733

Dominique Sornique made this print, ‘The Entry of Queen Isabella of Bavaria into Paris,’ sometime in the 18th century, using an engraving technique. Look closely and you’ll see how the process of engraving has completely determined the image. Each line is the result of the artist physically cutting into a metal plate, which is then inked and printed. It’s a painstaking procedure, but with it, Sornique captured not just the Queen’s procession, but also a very real sense of labor and material. This wasn’t a unique image, but a reproduction. Engravings like this one were relatively cheap to produce, so they could be widely disseminated. In this way, the print takes part in a much larger economy of image-making, one connected to both the labor of the artist, and the consumption of the public. So, the next time you see a print, remember that it's not just an image, but also the product of specific decisions, tools, and processes. It's a great example of how the means of production can shape our understanding of history and culture.