Portrait of Rubens' sons, Albert and Nikolaus 1752

Jean Daullé made this print of Rubens' sons Albert and Nikolaus sometime in the 1700s. It was fabricated through engraving, where the artist would have used a tool called a burin to carve lines directly into a metal plate. This painstaking process allowed Daullé to capture incredibly fine details, like the delicate lace on the boys' collars and cuffs. The very act of creating an engraving is labor-intensive and demanding. Consider the time required to translate the vibrant colors and textures of a painting into a network of precise lines on a copper plate! Every line weight, and every cross-hatched area, would have had to be carefully considered to give the impression of light, shadow, depth, and even skin texture. This print would have been more than just a reproduction; it would have been a valuable commodity in its own right, bought and sold in the art market. It reminds us that even what might seem like a simple copy involves significant skill, time, and labor. It also demonstrates that what we see as "art" is always enmeshed with wider issues of class, production, and consumption.