Fotoreproductie van een prent naar de Triomf van Galatea door Rafaël before 1861

This photogravure by Gustav Schauer reproduces Raphael’s famous fresco of the Triumph of Galatea. Although Schauer made this image in the late nineteenth century, we need to look back to the Italian Renaissance to understand it. Raphael painted the original fresco in Rome around 1512. The fresco shows a scene from Greek mythology, in which the sea nymph Galatea rides on a shell-chariot pulled by dolphins. Flanking her are other sea creatures and mythological figures. Above Galatea are three cupids, drawing their bows. This reproduction was made in an era in which new printmaking technologies made artworks like Raphael's fresco newly accessible to wider audiences. We see the historical meaning of Raphael’s Galatea changing across time, as its visual codes and cultural references resonated with different social contexts. As historians of art, we can delve into archives and libraries to understand the ever-changing social and institutional life of images.