The Prince of Wales Presiding at a Meeting, held at South Kensington Museum, of the Commissioners for the Paris Exhibition, from "Illustrated London News" 1867

Editor: This is a print from the "Illustrated London News" in 1867, showing the Prince of Wales presiding at a meeting about the Paris Exhibition, held at the South Kensington Museum. It's interesting how many people are crammed into this one space! What do you make of it? Curator: What strikes me is how this engraving served as a form of mass communication. It's not just depicting an event, it's distributing a particular view of power and production to a broad audience. Consider the labor involved in producing this image: the engraver meticulously transferring the scene, the printing presses churning out copies. Editor: So it’s less about the Prince himself, and more about the labor and means of production around this event? Curator: Precisely! Look at how the architecture of the South Kensington Museum, designed to showcase industrial design, itself becomes a backdrop. It underscores how spaces of production – museums, exhibitions – were being constructed and consumed. Consider how the engraving medium itself dictated its style and reception. It circulated alongside news of the latest innovations, commodities, and fashions. It fueled the economic and social engine of the era. How do you view it now? Editor: It is kind of amazing to see this image and to understand how many people had to handle it for it to be distributed around England. I see it differently now, with this idea of mass production, a piece of media manufactured at scale. Curator: Exactly. Paying attention to its means of production is as vital as deciphering iconographic content. These historical images were embedded in a system of labor, and that really reshapes our perception of art!