Pope Pius VII Riding on the Saône at the Time of His Journey to Lyon 1805

Editor: So, this is Jean Jacques de Boissieu's "Pope Pius VII Riding on the Saône." It looks like an etching. It depicts a journey, but the sheer number of people involved makes me wonder about the labor that went into this event. What do you see here? Curator: Beyond the depicted event, consider the materials themselves. The copper plate, the inks, the paper: each has its own history tied to resource extraction, manufacturing, and trade networks. Who produced these materials, and under what conditions? The image normalizes hierarchy. It makes me uneasy. Editor: That is true. The etching process itself seems laborious. I hadn't considered that. Thanks for pointing that out.