Aap dwingt een kat de kastanjes uit het vuur te halen 1680 - 1723

Jacob Gole made this engraving, “Aap dwingt een kat de kastanjes uit het vuur te halen,” around the turn of the 18th century. As the title indicates, it depicts a monkey forcing a cat to retrieve chestnuts from a fire. Gole was a master of the burin, a steel tool used to incise lines into a copper plate. The depth and spacing of these lines determined the tones and textures of the final print. Notice how Gole used dense, cross-hatched lines to create the monkey’s fur, and finer, parallel lines to render the cat’s smoother coat. This would have been a laborious process. The print is based on a popular proverb, warning against being used by others for their own gain. But consider the making: Gole’s skill as an engraver depended on his willingness to labor away, patiently producing images that were then widely distributed. So, the next time you see an image like this, think not only of the message it conveys, but of the many hands that made its circulation possible. It encourages us to question the social relations embedded in the culture all around us.