Portret van een onbekende zeeofficier c. 1851 - 1883

Here is a portrait of an unknown naval officer, made by Johan Hendrik Hoffmeister in the mid-19th century. It's rendered through lithography, a printmaking process that relies on the drawn mark, not the cut or etched line. The technique gives the image a distinctive, almost photographic quality. The subtle gradations of tone, achieved by the artist's hand, bring out the texture of the officer’s uniform, from the intricate braiding to the gleaming buttons. You can almost feel the weight of the fabric. Lithography, as a method, was crucial to mass media. It allowed for a relative ease of reproduction, which made images more accessible. Think about the number of impressions that would have been struck from the printing stone to communicate an ideal of military service – and by extension, imperial power. Understanding how such a portrait was made gives us a clear window into the industrialized image-making of the time. It challenges our conventional ideas of artmaking as a unique individual expression.