Aeneas vlucht met zijn familie uit Troje 1663

Giuseppe Maria Mitelli created this print of Aeneas fleeing Troy, using etching, sometime between 1650 and 1718. The process involves coating a metal plate with wax, drawing an image through the wax, then submerging the plate in acid, which bites into the exposed metal. The image is a study in line, using hatching and cross-hatching to create tone and shadow, from the fire in the background to the figures fleeing in the foreground. Because prints like this one could be reproduced easily, they played a key role in disseminating imagery throughout Europe at this time. The etching technique, though it can achieve subtlety, also involved a degree of industrialization, allowing workshops to produce images at scale. You could say that Mitelli here is both a skilled artist, and also a canny entrepreneur, responding to the growing market for accessible images. In his hands, even a classical subject becomes a commodity.