Stilleven met een kleine kopie van 'Ariadne auf dem Panther' en een Meissen 'Schneeball-vaas' c. 1852

Eduard Isaac Asser made this albumen print still life with manufactured objects sometime in the mid-19th century. Look closely, and you’ll see a porcelain statuette under a glass dome, and a mass-produced Meissen vase overflowing with flowers. These objects are arranged with great compositional care. Asser was one of photography's early adopters. The new medium was very different from painting, and raised questions about the nature of art. Was it about manual skill, or the sensibility to arrange objects and capture light? The photograph collapses traditional hierarchies between art and craft by featuring manufactured objects. During this period, photography served to further blur these lines by offering a new way to replicate and disseminate images rapidly and widely. It democratized image-making, making it accessible to a broader audience, and changing our understanding of art and its relationship to commerce and everyday life.