Portret van Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard 1792 - 1816

This portrait of Heinrich August Ottokar Reichard was made with etching, a printmaking technique involving acid and metal. Consider the labor involved: first, creating the design with careful lines incised into a metal plate, then the corrosive work of the acid itself, and finally the repetitive task of printing. The result is a multiple – relatively inexpensive, and easily circulated. Etchings like this democratized portraiture. Before this time, only the wealthy could afford to have their likeness captured in painting or sculpture. Here, a new, more accessible mode of production allowed Reichard – a director of a theater, and a librarian – to have his image replicated and shared. This wasn't the rarefied world of oil paint on canvas, but the grittier reality of production. It is through this lens that we can see the true innovation, and indeed, the social impact, of printed images.