Blad met de familiewapens van negen geportretteerden 1690 - 1713

Editor: This is "Blad met de familiewapens van negen geportretteerden," from around 1690 to 1713. It's a print—an engraving—by an anonymous artist, here at the Rijksmuseum. It seems like a formal display of power. All these heraldic symbols neatly arranged. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see the laborious process of creating these engravings. The artist, whoever they were, was meticulously reproducing symbols of power. Consider the economy of labor: who commissioned this work? Who printed it, and for what audience? The material – the paper, the ink – speak to a system of production and consumption. These armorial bearings signify elite families, but also a whole system that allowed their representation. Editor: So, you’re thinking about it less as a symbolic representation of these families and more about…the printing itself as a system? The “how” of its existence? Curator: Precisely. Look at the repetition of form. Nine shields, each variations on a theme, all reproduced through essentially the same mechanical process. Are we to consider the labor that went into them? Or, instead, focus on the social structures reproduced by each subsequent print? How did the materials – the copper plate used for engraving – play into artistic standards? Was this ‘art’ or craft? Where was the divide then? Editor: That's a really interesting angle. I was initially focused on the families represented and what those symbols meant, but thinking about the production changes things completely. It seems the act of reproduction becomes a crucial part of the meaning itself, embedding these heraldic symbols further into societal structure and confirming this system to this very day. Thank you. Curator: It shifts the emphasis, doesn’t it? From simple representation to an understanding of how material culture actively shapes our understanding of power.