Reproductie van La bergerie door Charles Emile Jacque before 1876

This is a reproduction of La Bergerie by Charles Emile Jacque, created by an anonymous artist. It's a print, so of course, the question is what kind? The image is rendered in shades of gray, and the texture has a graininess, which suggest this is a photogravure. This would have been a laborious process, involving coating a copper plate with light-sensitive gelatin tissue, exposing it to a photographic negative, etching the plate, and then printing it. This technique, developed in the 19th century, allowed for the mass production of images with a high level of detail and tonal range. The original artwork depicts a flock of sheep huddled together in a barn, a scene of rural life. This print would have made such scenes accessible to a wider audience, and it's interesting to consider how the photogravure process itself, a product of industrialization, contributed to the dissemination and consumption of images of pre-industrial life. It reminds us that all media has its own material and social history.