Chap. IV: Elle me regard! Dieu quel bonheur! (She notices me! What happiness!) 1824

Editor: This is "Chap. IV: Elle me regard! Dieu quel bonheur! (She notices me! What happiness!)", an engraving by Victor Adam from 1824. It’s currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The image captures a romantic moment, but also feels a bit… stiff, almost staged. What's your take? Curator: What immediately strikes me is the material reality of this print. Engraving, as a process, demanded highly skilled labor. Think about the social context. This wasn’t mass-produced, disposable imagery. It suggests a market – who were buying these, consuming these images of fashionable life? Were they part of or just aspiring to the depicted scene? Editor: So you're thinking about the consumer, not just the pretty picture? Curator: Exactly! And consider the romanticism tag. The feelings might seem universal, but the production and consumption are decidedly not. Notice how the engraver meticulously renders the textures of the fabrics - the woman’s dress, the man's coat. What kind of labor goes into making those textiles, too? Who wears it? Who benefits? What are those chair made of? What makes some materials high status, and some, low? Editor: It really does recontextualize the work… I hadn’t considered the wider web of production and labor, and how that reflects back on the ‘romance’ depicted here. Curator: Precisely. Seeing the materials, seeing the means of production, can open up a completely new reading of a seemingly straightforward scene of romantic interest. Even those feathered hats weren't easy to make! Editor: Definitely something to chew on. Thank you! I will have to look at artworks more carefully in the future.