Heilige familie 1666 - 1707

Curator: Here we have "Heilige familie," or Holy Family, an engraving by Gérard Edelinck, dating somewhere between 1666 and 1707. It’s currently held in the Rijksmuseum. What’s your first impression? Editor: It feels both staged and deeply intimate at once. The light etches drama into every face, but the baby, reaching out with those chubby hands…that’s pure, untainted tenderness. I immediately want to examine the process of production. Curator: Tell me more. What stands out about the material and its production? Editor: Well, it’s a print, which democratizes the image in a way that a painting wouldn't. Each line meticulously carved into the plate to produce countless copies... It’s labour-intensive, a craft really, pushing against the lofty heights often reserved for "high art" of the period. What about the story itself, though? What attracts you, artistically, to this image? Curator: The weight of observation. Look at Joseph, looming in the upper-left corner. He's not *participating*. He's watching. As is the older woman to the lower right. It feels as if we too are invited to simply...watch...and understand. Editor: Do you think the Renaissance undertones impact the piece? The almost sculptural solidity, like a carefully arranged tableau, also seems very… staged for viewing and dissemination. This makes me wonder about how far prints such as this one might have traveled... who encountered them, in what context, and how might these images then influence a wider devotional market and its accompanying labour networks? Curator: Yes, and it highlights the distance between lived experience and artistic idealization. Yet even knowing this, the central figures convey a certain sacredness. But even knowing that, the sheer technical mastery makes me giddy! Look at the play of light on fabric! Editor: Indeed! And the sheer physical labor involved in recreating that light, line by painstaking line, always warrants considering, too. Thanks for sharing, it certainly provoked some thoughts on devotional art as product. Curator: Thanks. For me, thinking about their future, what each family represented and was able to provide… It’s all captured, quite exquisitely, within these monochrome lines.