Handelsetiket van een Leidse lakenhandel 1735

This is a label for the Leiden cloth trade, made in 1735 by Jan Wandelaar. It’s an etching, meaning that the image was incised into a metal plate, inked, and then printed onto paper. The dense network of fine lines gives the scene a remarkable clarity. You can see allegorical figures: Mercury, god of commerce, and an embodiment of the city of Leiden herself. What may be less obvious is how the print signals the scale and complexity of textile production at this time. The ships in the background indicate international trade, the raw materials that would have been imported, and the finished cloth exported globally. Consider the labor required to produce both the cloth, and this image representing it. The etcher would have needed great skill to cut the design, while the textile workers would have also developed skills over years of practice. This label encapsulates the integration of labor, trade, and artistic skill within the cloth industry, while challenging traditional distinctions between fine art and craft.