Man en vrouw met naald en draad 1757

Gerard van Haeften made this etching, "Man en vrouw met naald en draad," or "Man and Woman with Needle and Thread," using a printmaking technique. The lines you see were created by incising a metal plate, inking it, and then pressing paper against it. The image depicts a scene of domestic labor, but it's hardly a celebration of craft. Instead, the man is leering at the woman as she prepares to sew. The needle and thread, tools of a trade, become props in a tableau of exploitation. We see her at work, but also very much at risk. Van Haeften is implicating the entire social structure in this dynamic. Printmaking itself was a form of proto-industrial production, allowing images to be circulated widely. Here, that system is put to the service of a complicated, unsettling subject. It reminds us that even the most seemingly straightforward depictions of labor can carry a heavy burden of social commentary.