Gezicht op het stadhuis op de Grote Markt in Bergen op Zoom 1745

Hendrik Spilman made this print of the town hall in Bergen op Zoom sometime in the 1700s, using etching, a process that requires incredible skill. The scene’s level of detail results from the precise, linear character of the etched line. To create it, Spilman would have coated a copper plate with wax, then scratched the image into the wax with a sharp needle-like tool, exposing the metal. The plate was then submerged in acid, which bit into the exposed lines. Ink was then applied and the plate was pressed onto paper, transferring the image. Consider the amount of labor that went into such a work: not just the artist’s, but also the papermaker’s, the printer’s, and the copper miners before them. This was the era of the Enlightenment, and printmaking made images like this accessible to a wide audience, fostering a shared visual culture, and ultimately, a sense of collective identity. This print reminds us that even seemingly simple images have deep roots in material and social processes.