Woman Lighting a Rocket, also called Peace Gets Me Going, from Communia Gaudia (The Wide-Spread Rejoicing at the Siege of Namur) 1695

This print, "Woman Lighting a Rocket," was made by Cornelis Dusart around the turn of the 18th century. It uses the technique of etching, which involves biting lines into a metal plate with acid, and then using this plate to make impressions on paper. The etched lines here give a gritty, almost sooty quality to the scene. A woman wearing a voluminous apron, possibly a cook or kitchen worker, raises a torch to light a firework rocket. Judging by the crowd of onlookers in the background, it's a moment of public celebration. This relates to the print’s larger title “The Wide-Spread Rejoicing at the Siege of Namur”. Interestingly, Dusart made many images of working people. The print medium allowed his images to circulate widely. In that sense, printmaking was a democratic medium, a way to disseminate images far beyond the elite circles of painting. We might ask, how did the artist view this woman? Was he part of her world, or an outsider looking in? Considering the process of production can give us a whole new avenue of understanding.