He Perceived That Her Little Foot Slid In Without Trouble 

Gustave Doré made this engraving, "He Perceived That Her Little Foot Slid In Without Trouble," in the 19th century. Doré was a prolific printmaker, and this image, like many others, was made using the technique of wood engraving, a relief process that demanded great skill from the artisans who cut the blocks. The image is characterized by the fine, dense lines that create dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, a technique used to its fullest advantage here. This allowed for mass production, and wide distribution in books and periodicals. Consider the labor: Doré himself was the creative mastermind, but many anonymous hands contributed to the making of the final print. This brings up broader questions of labor and class, as the tale of Cinderella itself involves themes of social mobility. This print makes me consider the many skilled hands that were essential to the 19th-century print industry, and whose contributions are often overlooked. The making of an artwork is never the work of a sole genius, but a complex web of social relations.