Kruisdraging 1632

Paulus Pontius made this engraving, "Kruisdraging," depicting Christ carrying the cross, sometime in the first half of the 17th century. In the Netherlands at this time, printmaking was booming, with workshops producing images for an expanding market. Pontius worked in the studio of Peter Paul Rubens, the famous Flemish Baroque painter. Here, he translates one of Rubens's painted compositions into black and white. Through the skilled use of line, Pontius conveys the drama and emotion of the scene. But prints also had a social function. They made images more widely available, turning the museum into a virtual space, where ideas could be debated. By circulating images of this kind, printmakers and publishers were active participants in the religious and political debates of their time. The tools of the art historian, such as provenance research and the study of workshop practices, help us understand this vital social role.