Reproductie van Calvaria door Antonello da Messina before 1877

This is Joseph Maes's reproduction of Antonello da Messina's Calvaria, dating from the late 19th or early 20th century. It's a photogravure, a process that combines photography and etching to create a printed image. Think about the labor involved: the photographer, the printer, and the etcher all played a part, their collective work made possible through industrialization. The original Calvaria would have been a unique artwork, handmade. In contrast, the photogravure is a manufactured copy, made possible by the advent of new technologies in the 19th century. The image itself is printed on paper, which lends the image a soft, slightly textured surface. It's this very process of reproduction that democratizes the image, making it accessible to a wider audience, detaching it from the elite circles that could afford original artworks. By understanding the process and context of its making, we can begin to appreciate the photogravure not just as a copy, but as a unique artifact of its own time, reflecting the changing social and technological landscape of art production.