Fotoreproductie van een tekening van Maria met Christuskind door Paul Delaroche before 1858

This is a photographic reproduction of a drawing of Maria with Christuskind, made by Robert Jefferson Bingham. Photography in the mid-19th century was a process that involved a certain amount of chemistry and craft. Here, the photographic process itself—the careful manipulation of light-sensitive materials—is foregrounded as the means of reproducing and disseminating an image of fine art. Bingham, like many photographers of his time, was engaged in a fascinating intersection of art, science, and commerce. His choice of subject matter, a drawing of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus, reflects the tastes of the time, while the photographic reproduction speaks to the democratizing potential of the medium, allowing for wider circulation of artistic images. The albumen print, made from a glass negative, would have been seen as a cutting-edge technology, with the ability to capture detail and tone that other methods struggled to achieve. Consider the labor that went into this image: from the artist who made the original drawing to the photographer who then captured it, and all the workers involved in processing the print. Seeing the materiality and making of photography allows us to look again at its social and cultural significance.