Portretten van twee courtisanes 1630 - 1632

Crispijn van de Passe the Younger made this print of two women in the early 17th century. It’s an engraving, a process where the design is incised into a metal plate, and then ink is applied to create an impression on paper. The linear quality of the image, and its fairly small scale, are both characteristic of this printmaking technique. If you look closely, you’ll notice how the intricate details – the lace collars, the sitters’ jewelry and hair – are all carefully delineated with fine lines. These have been physically cut into the plate, requiring the artist to have skill and dexterity. Engravings like this one were important in the early modern period, as they allowed images to be widely disseminated. They functioned almost like photographs do today, recording likenesses of notable people, and circulating them for a broad audience. The very materiality of the print, made through a painstaking and replicable process, speaks to its social role as a medium of communication and representation in its time. We shouldn’t think of printmaking as ‘lesser’ than painting or sculpture: it had its own distinctive power.