Zestien voorstellingen van diverse menselijke figuren en dieren 1841

Victor Adam created this print, "Sixteen Representations of Various Human Figures and Animals," using lithography sometime in the first half of the 19th century. What are we to make of these small vignettes, so neatly arrayed on the page? Well, the clues lie in the context of their production and reception. In France at this time, the burgeoning middle class hungered for images, and the relatively new technology of lithography could provide them at an affordable price. Adam catered to this market with scenes that mixed exoticism and everyday life. Note the careful attention to ethnographic detail in figures like the mounted knight, contrasted with the domesticity of women tending to children and chickens. The print flattens the world into a series of types, and by consuming images such as these, the 19th-century public reinforced its sense of self, class, and nation. Historians of art and culture use sources like newspapers, advertisements, and exhibition reviews to better understand the social function of images like this one.