Litanie tot O.L.V. / van Lauretten 1790

Curator: This is “Litanie tot O.L.V. / van Lauretten,” a print made around 1790 by the widow H. Bontamps. It's an engraving with ink, exhibiting Baroque stylistic elements. It seems very ordered, almost like a chart. How do you interpret this work? Editor: It's definitely intricate. All those little images surrounding the central figure, maybe Mary? I wonder what each of them represents and how it speaks to religious experience. Curator: Exactly. Think about how this print, likely produced for private devotion, might be connected to larger societal structures of the time. Widow Bontamps was a business woman, so this can be tied to a capitalist, patriarchal system. The use of Marian imagery points to the prevalent gender roles of the 18th century. How might the act of printing and distributing images like this influence and reinforce social hierarchies? Editor: So, it's not just a religious image; it’s tied to economics, gender roles, and power structures of the era. What about the choice to produce this piece as a print? Wouldn't that have allowed for mass production? Curator: Precisely! Prints democratized images, making them accessible to a broader public and simultaneously embedding religious and social ideologies within everyday life. The visual language and its repeated use serve to normalize and naturalize such beliefs. Editor: So, it's less about the individual figures and more about the collective impact of such an accessible and repeatable image. It certainly challenges my initial understanding of its pure, religious devotion. Thanks! Curator: Yes. Understanding the socio-political implications alongside its devotional function offers a more complete understanding. I hadn’t considered the extent to which prints such as this normalized the beliefs.