Verklaring van de penning door Johan George Holtzhey geslagen op het huwelijk van Willem V, prins van Oranje-Nassau en Wilhelmina Frederica Sophia van Pruisen te Berlijn 1767

Editor: Here we have an etching, or rather a print, titled "Verklaring van de penning door Johan George Holtzhey geslagen op het huwelijk van Willem V, prins van Oranje-Nassau en Wilhelmina Frederica Sophia van Pruisen te Berlijn," created in 1767. It looks like pure text, a description, perhaps an explanation, of a commemorative coin. It’s quite dense. What catches your eye? Curator: What interests me here is how the print functions as a kind of parallel production to the coin itself. It's not simply describing the object, but disseminating information about it to a wider public. The very act of printing allows for multiple reproductions, which connects to the wider accessibility of information and political symbolism in this period. Consider the labor involved in setting the type, printing the sheet – a conscious and deliberate effort to manufacture and distribute this message. Editor: So you’re saying that it is less about the message itself, and more about how it was spread around? Curator: Not necessarily, but paying attention to the medium shifts our focus. It encourages us to think about the relationship between artisanal production and burgeoning mass communication. Look at the stylistic choices in the typeface. What kind of skills are required to create those letterforms? It challenges any hierarchy we might create between so-called "high art" and the craft of printing. Editor: That makes me think about who was literate at the time, and how the printing process might have influenced the messages being sent out to the public. So many steps in production involved decisions, skills, and also constraints... Curator: Exactly. And these processes always affect meaning. Attending to the materiality allows us to see how this wedding wasn’t just a personal event, but something intentionally crafted, manufactured, and then consumed on a mass scale. Editor: That's really interesting. I had not thought of it as something "consumed," but it's very thought-provoking. Thank you.