Inname van Middelburg door de Britten, 1809 1809

Friedrich Christoph Dietrich made this print of the British taking Middelburg in 1809. The technique used is etching, a printmaking process which relies on acid to bite into a metal plate, usually copper or zinc. Look closely and you will notice that the line work is delicate and precise, made through layers of stopping out and re-biting. It is an indirect process involving labor at multiple stages, including the preparation of the plate, the drawing of the image, and the final printing. The linear character of etching is well-suited to rendering architectural details and capturing a sense of depth and perspective, as we see here. Etchings like this one were often made for mass distribution, and speak to the rise of print culture in the 19th century, producing widely distributed images for the consumption of a growing middle class. The focus is less on the ‘aura’ of unique art, and more on accessibility. They remind us that art is always embedded in a larger matrix of social, economic, and technological forces.