Kafferbuffel 1787

This print of an African Buffalo was made by an anonymous artist, and its origins are obscure. What does it mean to represent the non-European world in reproducible form? This image participates in a longer history of European printmaking, in which the mastery of a technology was used to categorize and classify populations and species. The image seems to invite scientific enquiry, but we must remember that science is itself an institution. Is it a neutral tool, or an expression of cultural norms? Who gets to look, and who is being looked at? To understand this image more fully, we might ask what kinds of books it was printed in, and who was likely to own those books? Thinking about the conditions that shape artistic production helps us to avoid taking anything for granted.