Twee portretten van jonge vrouwen

Wenceslaus Hollar made these two portrait etchings of young women sometime in the 17th century. The print is made by incising lines into a metal plate, inking it, and then running it through a press. Hollar was a master of this process, as you can see in the fine details of the women's faces, hair, and clothing. The very precise lines create a sense of volume and texture, giving the impression of depth and realism. But consider the social context. Printmaking in this period was closely tied to both skilled craft and to commercial production. Prints like these were relatively affordable, and widely circulated. They speak to the rise of a mercantile culture in which images, like other goods, were made available to a broad public. We might even see in these repeated, precise lines, a metaphor for the way that early capitalism was beginning to shape individual identities.