A peasant in a high cap, standing leaning on a stick 1719 - 1780

François Vivares made this etching of “A peasant in a high cap, standing leaning on a stick” in the 18th century. It’s a copy of a work by Rembrandt van Rijn, published about a hundred years earlier. Prints like these were a vital way that images circulated in Europe at the time. This was well before photography, so if you wanted to know what a painting looked like, or to own an image yourself, engravings or etchings were often the only way. By copying one of Rembrandt's images, Vivares was participating in a long tradition of artists studying and disseminating the work of great masters. In reproducing this etching, Vivares ensured Rembrandt’s art was available to a wider audience beyond the Dutch Republic, which is quite telling considering the later’s enormous impact on the art world. It’s a reminder that how art circulates, the institutions that support it, and the economic structures in which it’s made, all shape the way we understand its meaning. To know more, look into the history of printmaking and art academies of the 1700s.