Portret van Charles de Montesquieu 1758 - 1806

This is an engraving, made by Pierre Adrien Le Beau, showing Charles de Montesquieu. Engraving is an incisive medium, reliant on a burin to scratch lines into a metal plate. Think of it as a kind of writing – the tool creates a delicate, precise trace. The physical work is intensive, requiring great skill and control. Multiple passes may be needed to achieve a dark tone. What’s fascinating is the inherent tension between this laborious, craft-based process, and its purpose. Engravings like these were made to be reproduced, disseminating images far and wide. This one would have appeared in a book, spreading Montesquieu's ideas. So, even as the engraver carefully plied their burin, they were participating in a larger system of mass communication – a tension that runs throughout the history of art, between handcraft and mechanical production. We often think of prints as being democratic, in their availability, but consider the labour involved, and the complicated social context in which they were made.