Deucalion and Pyrrha, from 'Game of Mythology' (Jeu de la Mythologie) 1644

Stefano della Bella made this tiny print in the 17th century, using etching – essentially, scratching lines into a metal plate, inking it, and running it through a press. You can see the artist's labor in every stroke. The whole composition is built up from a dense network of hatching. This was how printmakers achieved tone before the advent of photography. The image shows a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. After a great flood, only Deucalion and Pyrrha were left. They were instructed to repopulate the earth by casting stones over their shoulders. This was, of course, a laborious task, but notice how it results in something monumental: the stones transform into human beings. The image is part of a set, a ‘Game of Mythology.’ It’s fascinating to think of these mass-produced images—little nuggets of visual information—as a kind of cultural currency. The very concept of “art” becomes bound up with printmaking and its social reach. It shows how an ancient story was kept alive through the skilled labor of an artist, multiplied, and set loose in the world.