Meisje met lelietje-van-dalen in de hand 1894

This is Oscar Schulz’s ‘Girl with Lily of the Valley in her Hand’, a monochrome print made with etching. The character of an etching comes from the controlled corrosion of metal. The artist coats a metal plate with a waxy, acid-resistant substance, then scratches into it with a sharp needle. When dipped in acid, the exposed lines are eaten away, leaving an image incised into the metal. This is then inked and printed. The result can have a crisp, linear quality, very different from the more painterly effect of an aquatint. Prints like these were essential for the distribution of imagery in the 19th century, functioning a bit like photography does today. As such, they had considerable social importance. Schulz’s subject matter, a modest young woman holding flowers, is consistent with the period’s sentimental aesthetic, but it is the mechanical process of production that allowed such images to gain wide circulation. Looking at this etching, we can consider how images made and distributed through industrial means have shaped our shared culture.