Interieur van prenthandel Tessaro & Compagnie te Gent 1842

Adolphe Alexandre Dillens created this print, “Interior of the Print Shop Tessaro & Company in Ghent,” using etching, a printmaking technique, and drypoint. Here, lines are incised into a metal plate, holding ink that’s then transferred to paper. This is an industrial means of production, allowing multiple impressions to be made. Crucially, the print depicts commerce; it shows the interior of a print shop, selling printed images, maps, and globes. The labor involved in the production of prints – both artistic and mechanical – is apparent here. The arrangement is theatrical, even comic, as if to mock the very consumerism the shop enables. Dillens himself was a painter and printmaker, so his artistic choices were very much tied to the world depicted. The making of prints like this one democratized image production in the 19th century. These prints made art and knowledge more accessible to a wider public. So while Dillens’s picture is not a fine painting or sculpture, it is an essential document of the industrial revolution and its transformation of visual culture.