Fotoreproductie van een prent door Auguste Lehmann van de Madonna met de anjer door Rafaël

This is a photographic reproduction made by Joseph Cundall of an engraving by Auguste Lehmann of Raphael’s ‘Madonna of the Pinks.’ This image exists at the intersection of a number of cultural and institutional forces. It is a copy of a copy, an attempt to disseminate the aura of Raphael’s original painting, but made during a time when photography was still relatively new, and the status of photographic reproduction was very much in question. The image speaks to the way in which nineteenth-century Britain viewed itself as the inheritor of the artistic traditions of the Renaissance. We must ask ourselves, what were the social and institutional forces at play here? Was this the democratization of art? Or was it simply the commodification of it? By looking at original documentation from the period, we can begin to understand the public role of art at this time, and the social conditions that shaped its production and consumption. In doing so, we may better understand the social and cultural history of nineteenth-century Britain.