Venus en Cupido c. 1681 - 1688

Isaac Beckett made this print, Venus en Cupido, using a technique called mezzotint. It's a painstaking process. The entire plate is roughened with a tool called a rocker, creating a burr that, if printed at this stage, would produce a solid black image. From there, the printmaker works from dark to light, burnishing and scraping away the burr to varying degrees, achieving different tones. Look closely, and you can see the fine texture created by this method. Mezzotint was prized for its ability to render subtle gradations of tone, ideal for reproducing paintings and portraits. It allowed printmakers to mimic the textures and light effects of oil paintings, bringing these images to a wider audience. Consider the labor involved in creating this print. It's easy to overlook the skilled work that went into producing what might seem like a simple reproduction. This piece demonstrates how printmaking could be a highly refined craft, blurring the lines between reproduction and artistic creation.