Maart: in de tuin werken

This print, "Maart: in de tuin werken," was made by Jan Caspar Philips, sometime in the 18th century. It’s an etching, meaning that the image was created by incising lines into a metal plate, inking it, and then pressing it onto paper. The quality of the line is everything here; it defines the forms of the figures, their clothing, and the landscape they occupy. We see three men at labor, digging and pruning, in what is surely meant to be a well-appointed garden. While the print is small in scale, it gives us a real sense of their work: the repetitive actions, the equipment they use, the stooped postures of physical exertion. Prints like this were often made in series, representing the months or the seasons. They remind us that even seemingly timeless artistic media like etching are deeply connected to cycles of labor and production. Looking closely at the marks left by Philips’s hand, we can appreciate both his skill and the social context in which he lived and worked.