Portret van een zittend meisje 1846 - 1894

This stipple engraving of a seated girl was made by Eugène Michel Joseph Abot in the 19th century. Look closely and you'll see that the image is built up from thousands of tiny dots, achieved by repeatedly tapping a sharp tool into the copper plate. Engraving was a highly skilled, labor-intensive process, often used to reproduce paintings for a wider audience. The stipple technique allowed for softer, more tonal effects than traditional line engraving, mimicking the subtleties of painting. Notice how the texture of the girl's dress and the soft light on her face are rendered through the density and distribution of the dots. In its time, this print served as an accessible stand-in for an original painting, part of a broader system of image circulation tied to the rise of mass media. It reminds us that even seemingly straightforward images can be the result of complex techniques and economic forces.