Unfolding Images: Lateral Reversal, Art History, and Early Modern European Printmaking

Patterns of Reversal

Reversal belongs to the essential characteristics of printmaking as a medium, occurring inevitably as the matrix or plate impresses upon the paper. Over the centuries, the decision to counteract this medially rooted condition has spurred the development of various techniques, especially to manipulate the orientation of the print’s preparatory drawing. This drawing could be oiled in order to make it semi-transparent, rubbed with red chalk on its verso, as well as counterproved or drawn on carta lucida; mirrors or other optical devices could be similarly adopted to transfer the design left-right-reversed to the matrix/plate.^[15] Yet, early modern European prints very often do not retain the lateral orientation of their model, whether the model is an artwork (such as a painting or sculpture) selected for a so-called ‘reproductive’ print, or the preparatory drawings for an ‘original’ print.^[16] Why does the lateral orientation of the printed image play such an elusive role in the history of European printmaking? What insights does it offer into the shifting early modern notions of composition and imitation, as well as into which aspects of an image are deemed meaningful?

This latter question necessarily points to the fact that any inquiry into lateral reversal – whether in printmaking or other image-making technologies – must grapple with the dense constellation of epistemic meanings attributed to left and right, a constellation shaped by cultural, moral, and anthropological considerations.^[17] From the gestures of blessing and the esteemed position at the right side of Christ to conventions of carrying a sword or playing a violin, both religious and secular iconographies imply normative uses of left and right. Here, ‘epistemic’ refers to the various forms of knowledge that images aim to produce, represent, or communicate.^[18] The following pages will delve into the intricate interplay between the epistemic and aesthetic layers of meaning, with ‘aesthetic’ encompassing aspects as varied as style, expression, and (compositional) balance.^[19]

To make the case for the significance of early modern images that exist in multiple lateral configurations, this article will first examine the constitutive relationship linking the printed image to its matrix/plate, and then move to considerations on ‘visual effectiveness’ as embedded in early modern conceptions of form. This exploration includes a focus on French prints after existing artworks and theoretical reflections on printmaking from the initial decades of the eighteenth century – a period marked by profound shifts in aesthetic and interpretive paradigms. Consequently, some arguments often associated (not without controversy) with discussions of image reversal, such as the influence of reading direction (often integrated into various interpretations of the image-as-text paradigm) and the multifaceted literature on orientation and visual narrative, are necessarily relegated to the background.^[20] However, by focusing on the existence of various disciplinary models to address how images generate meaning through (and beyond) their lateral orientation, the concluding sections of this article aim to both acknowledge and engage with the widespread relevance of image reversal today across diverse scientific disciplines, extending well beyond the realms of art history and experimental research on images. This focus underscores the challenge this article addresses: navigating a multitude of interpretive paradigms while steering clear of undue generalizations.

Sites of Authority: The Printed Image and the Matrix

Among the boldest statements about accuracy and printmaking as a medium of faithful copy, the following passage from the foreword of the Recueil Crozat – one of the most significant collaborative achievements of eighteenth-century European printmaking – stands out: “We present here drawings by all the great Masters … We did it with the most scrupulous exactitude, that is to say without omitting anything and without changing anything [‘sans y rien omettre, & sans y rien changer’]. Pen and ink and chalk drawings have been etched in the spirit of the originals, whose every feature has been followed.”^[21] This specifically refers to the drawings by Perugino, Raphael, and Giulio Romano, among others, translated into print by Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Elder, Nicolas and Vincent Le Sueur, Paul-Ponce-Antoine Robert de Séri, and Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières, Comte de Caylus. However, in the Recueil all of the 45 prints made after early modern drawings as well as more than two-thirds of the prints taken from Italian paintings are in reverse (figs. 4–5). This circumstance notably puzzled Francis Haskell, who, in his pioneering enquiry into the origins of the “art book,” cited it as one of “some surprising weaknesses” of these volumes.^[22] Contrarily, this remark offers the opportunity to reconsider what notion of reproduction is at stake here, and – more specifically for the present purposes – to examine the role of the image’s lateral orientation in this process. At stake are both the patterns inherent in the production of (aesthetic and epistemic) meaning in the printed image, and the way by which modern and contemporary Western art history engages with them.

4

Nicolas Le Sueur and Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières, Comte de Caylus, after a drawing by Giulio Romano, Des pecheurs retirant leurs filets, etching and chiaroscuro woodcut, 26.4 × 42.8 cm, from the Recueil Crozat, vol. 1, Paris 1729, pl. 49. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

5

Giulio Romano, A Fishing Scene, ca. 1527, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 26.3 × 43 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 3561

Championed by the financier and art collector Pierre Crozat and curated by the print dealer and connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette, the Recueil Crozat consists of more than 180 prints executed by more than 40 different printmakers after paintings and drawings dating from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century.^[23] It is noteworthy that for those involved in this ambitious project the pursuit of the most faithful rendering of the artworks did not always entail preserving their original lateral orientation. This approach becomes particularly evident in the printed renditions of the drawings, where the original works are addressed and scrutinized in their multiple stylistic and material components. The drawings’ size as well as the different materiality of the traits are closely mimicked through the recourse to experimental techniques such as chiaroscuro woodcut, with blocks printed over woodcut or etched base.^[24]

A notable example is Des pecheurs retirant leurs filets, a print made after a drawing by Giulio Romano, which was then part of Crozat’s personal collection. Here, Nicolas Le Sueur, collaborating with the Comte de Caylus, resorts to the versatility of etching to render the linear patterns of the original drawing. For the varying shades found in the brown ink and wash, they instead rely on the chiaroscuro woodcut technique, demonstrating the adaptability and innovative approaches of printmakers to mirror the intricate details and tonal variations of the drawing. Despite this technical sensitivity, this print, like the others derived from drawings, is laterally reversed.

Though it may seem paradoxical to today’s way of thinking, reversal can indeed be considered in terms of a search for accuracy. When no intermediate steps lie between the original and the physical confrontation of the engraver with the surface of the plate, the result is closer to the model, the argument would go. The printing matrix emerges as the privileged site of authority, that is in its role of material repository of the labor of the engraver, with the printed image aligning to the demands of this adherence and engagement.

This line of reasoning offers a different angle from which to approach prints that manifestly disregard iconographical or other predetermined patterns of visual order. Rembrandt’s etchings and drypoints are in this sense paradigmatic. Whether it is Abraham depicted holding the knife in his left hand, intended for killing Isaac (fig. 6), or the portrayal of Amsterdam’s silhouette from the northeast but in a left-right reversal, some of Rembrandt’s most celebrated prints exhibit a deliberate departure from iconographical and topographical accuracy.^[25] To phrase it differently, Rembrandt did not prioritize the consistent preservation of iconographic elements or the orientation patterns prevalent in his drawings and paintings, such as the direction of light or the narrative articulation and arrangement of a scene. In this regard, utilizing photographic mirroring and, more recently, digital editing to view Rembrandt’s prints in reverse can deepen our understanding of his unique approach to printmaking. However, such manipulations do not offer a means to reinstate a ‘correct’ perspective for viewing Rembrandt’s compositions, contrary to some claims.^[26] Rather, the case of Rembrandt openly speaks for the specific medial status of the impressions. Rembrandt elevated the etching process to mirror the immediacy of drawing, treating the plate as a surface for experimentation with lines, textures, and tonal variations. As Jonathan Richardson stated in his Essay on the Art of Criticism of 1719, the print “designed upon the plate, which hath been sometimes done especially in etching … is a kind of drawing … and is purely and properly original” – a passage that openly betrays the impact on Richardson of Rembrandt’s reinvention of the medium.^[27] Just as the plates in the Recueil Crozat emerge as an alternative site of authority to the printed image, so does the etching plate in Rembrandt’s practice. Where the engravers of the Recueil Crozat pursued accuracy, however, Rembrandt sought immediacy, exploring the porosity between drawing and print.

6

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Sacrifice of Abraham, 1665, etching and drypoint, 15.6 × 12.9 cm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

On the Visual Effectiveness of the Printed Image

In eighteenth-century France, the critical discourse on printmaking further exemplifies the ongoing exploration of the tension between aesthetic and epistemic dimensions of meaning as it relates to reversal. Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger, in his discussion of the techniques for avoiding image reversal, compellingly articulates this dynamic: “If it is necessary that the print results in the same direction as the original painting or drawing, which one is obliged to do when there are actions which must be done with the right hand [‘des actions qui doivent se faire de la main droite’] and which will come to the left on the print”^[28] This statement, an interpolation by Cochin to Abraham Bosse’s treatise on printmaking, first published in Paris in 1645, underscores Cochin’s significant editorial contributions to the revised edition of Bosse’s work that he supervised. Notably, Bosse’s original work did not specifically address the reasons for avoiding reversal.^[29] By employing a conditional (“if it is necessary”), Cochin suggests that adhering to the model’s orientation is not a requisite for every print, introducing a sort of nuanced perspective on accuracy and adaptation in the printmaking process.

This line of thought was expressed in a more direct and detailed manner a few years later in the diary of the renowned Paris-based engraver Johann Georg Wille: “On the 9 [of June 1764] I transferred to the plate my drawing after the painting by Terburgen [sic], and on the same day I started to trace the outlines. I engraved it in reverse because of the sword of the official who is represented. I also engraved my Wandering Musicians in this way in order to have the violinist playing with his right hand. I engrave all pieces that require, for similar reasons, to be this way, without ever using a mirror, as all the other engravers do.”^[30]

Wille’s mention of engraving his prints “without ever using a mirror” underscores that reversal can also manifest at the level of mental imagery.^[31] This observation reveals an additional layer in the investigation of reversal: that of artists and printmakers who can “work in reverse, visualize in reflective symmetries and think of their final product as a mirror image of its preliminary incarnation,” as Peter Parshall insightfully observed in reference to Albrecht Dürer.^[32]

However, it is crucial not to broadly assume the presence of such spatial skills throughout the history of early modern European printmaking. As Wille’s observation that “all the other engravers” use a mirror also suggests, these abilities varied and should be examined within specific historical and cultural contexts, rather than assumed as a common practice. A pertinent example of this approach is the recent examination of form rotation (distinct from reversal due to its three-dimensional, rather than planar, nature of visual manipulation) and its significance in the work of sixteenth-century German engravers like Heinrich Aldegrever and Hans Sebald Beham.^[33]

The engravings Wille discusses in his diary are those he made after Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation (figs. 7–8) and Christian Dietrich’s Wandering Musicians, both of which were paintings housed in French private collections at the time (the title The Paternal Admonition, by which the former painting is also known today, originates from the inscription Wille added to his print). Echoing Cochin’s approach, Wille’s commentary attests a concern with adhering to iconographical conventions that was instrumental in shaping the epistemic layering of meaning in the printed image.

7

Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation (also known as The Paternal Admonition), 1654–1655, oil on canvas, 71 × 60 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie

8

Johann Georg Wille after Gerard ter Borch, L’instruction paternelle, 1765, engraving and etching, 43.7 × 34.3 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Similar concerns are evident in the Recueil Crozat: the dozen prints after paintings that retain the orientation of the model in the published volumes all feature one or more figures engaged in distinct acts – the “actions,” as Cochin referred to them in his edition of Bosse’s treatise. For instance, in Raphael’s Grand and Petit Saint Michael, engraved by Nicolas de Larmessin and Claude Duflos, respectively, the saints are depicted wielding a spear or a sword. The same attention to action and orientation applies to the two Saint Georges by Raphael, housed in the Royal and in Pierre Crozat’s collection, respectively, both engraved by Larmessin. Larmessin also maintained the original orientation in his rendition of the Portrait of Ferry Carondelet by Sebastiano del Piombo (then attributed to Raphael), a painting that depicts the secretary behind the cardinal engaged in writing.^[34] In Louis Jacob’s engraving of Veronese’s Perseus and Andromeda, it is the sword in the hand of the Greek hero that appears to justify keeping the original orientation; similarly, in Jean Baptiste Scotin’s engraving of Domenico Fetti’s Peasant’s Life, the detail of an old lady holding spinning yarn is preserved.^[35] Claude Duflos, in his rendition of The Pilgrims of Emmaus by Veronese, retains the central gesture of Christ blessing (fig. 9).^[36]

9

Claude Duflos, Les Disciples d’Emaüs, after a painting by Paolo Veronese, engraving and etching, 48.6 × 54 cm, from the Recueil Crozat, vol. 2, Paris 1737, pl. 160. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the same time, this very concern for the epistemic intelligibility of gestures manifests with varying emphasis and sensitivity among the printmakers contributing to the Recueil. Notably, the same right-hand gesture of benediction by Christ in another painting with Veronese’s Pilgrims of Emmaus is rendered in reverse by Simon Thomassin (fig. 10).^[37] When compared side by side, the distinct visual prominence of this gesture becomes evident. Duflos profiles and even accentuates the blessing hand through luminist contrast, whereas, in Thomassin’s rendition, the blessing hand subtly blends into the linear patterns of Jesus’ garments. This contrast highlights the fluid boundaries between epistemic and aesthetic layers of meaning, as well as the significance of (un)meaningful details – those deviating from semantic norms – in signaling the reversed nature of the print to the viewer.

10

Simon Thomassin, Les Disciples d’Emaüs, after a painting by Paolo Veronese, engraving and etching, 47.8 × 67.5 cm, from Recueil Crozat, Paris 1737, vol. 2, pl. 156. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The prints in reverse from the Recueil Crozat, alongside Wille’s and Cochin’s theoretical reflections, hint at a subset of images for which left-right reversal is not deemed a critical concern. What emerges is the mobility in the lateral configuration of the image. This suggests that not every printed image necessitates maintaining the lateral orientation of its model. This mobility, this essay contends, ultimately pertains to what has been termed the “visual effectiveness” of the printed image itself – an idea introduced by Michael Bury in the early 1990s. Bury used this concept to question the reproductive status of some mid-sixteenth-century engravings by Giorgio Ghisi, noting their free attitude to the models. Despite drawing inspiration from works by Raphael and Bronzino, Ghisi’s prints often alter formats and introduce elements not found in the original paintings, challenging traditional notions of reproductive accuracy.^[38] Contributions like Bury’s reflect a wider inclination to revisit and rethink the traditional categories for interpreting and classifying early modern prints, particularly the dichotomy between ‘original’ and ‘reproductive’ prints. The use of these terms in print studies seems to originate no earlier than the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – a period during which photography and industrial production methods had significantly altered European visual cultures, introducing novel perspectives on mimesis and seriality.^[39] In this respect, the study of the maintenance, or not, of image orientation not only contributes to the renewed mediological study of printmaking and its prerogatives. It also enhances our broader comprehension of the cultural strategies employed over centuries to craft and convey meaning in visual forms. Consequently, this analysis has the potential to forge new typological categorizations of early modern prints, shedding light on the intricate relationship between visual representation, technological innovation, and cultural expression.^[40]

The decision of whether or not to preserve the orientation of an image in its transformation into print directly entails Western concepts of form as a carrier of specific meaning and agency. The exploration of the reversed image can serve as a lens through which to investigate historically conditioned perceptions of the ‘force’ inherent in visual configurations – a cornerstone of Western image theory since its Greek inceptions, evolving through discourses on energeia, vitality, animation, and presence.^[41] Modern cultural projects as different as art connoisseurship, art history, Kunstwissenschaft, and Gestalt psychology have both depended on and contributed to regimenting and narrowing this connection between form and force, framing it within their respective theoretical and methodological paradigms. In the realm of print studies, the rise of connoisseurship and the establishment of art history as a systematic field of inquiry in eighteenth-century Europe have been instrumental in developing new epistemic protocols for assessing the apprehension of the printed image and its history.^[42]

These new protocols also led to the establishment of the critical distinctions between original and reproductive prints, among other categorizations. At the turn of the twentieth century, the psycho-physiological approach of Kunstwissenschaft introduced a novel way of considering image orientation. Starting from different premises than those underpinning the philological foundations of art history as an academic discipline, this empirical approach nonetheless converged with it, fostering a view of the picture plane as a dynamic field of forces. In this conceptualization, every position of the picture plane holds a unique expressive value – a perspective vividly encapsulated in Wölfflin’s methodology. This style of thinking solidified the concept of the reversed image as one of radical alterity, which also became the accepted norm within art-historical discourse and its methodological approaches.

Orientation and the Chirality of Images

Since its publication, Wölfflin’s 1928 article has stood at the crossroads of diverse research agendas. Julius von Schlosser, among the first to react to “Über das Rechts und Links im Bilde,” in his contribution on “the reading of pictures,” explicitly recognized the significance of Wölfflin’s observations, framing the “reversal of the original” within the contours of “the ugly and the aesthetic absurd [‘l’assurdo estetico’].”^[43] In the 1950s, Rudolf Arnheim, adopting a Gestalt psychology perspective, aligned with Wölfflin’s theses by stating that “pictures change appearance and lose meaning when turned into their mirror images.”^[44] This sentiment is echoed in Meyer Schapiro’s semiotically oriented examination of the “non-mimetic elements of the image-sign,” where he leverages Wölfflin’s viewpoints to probe “whether the left and right sides of a perceptual field have inherently different qualities.”^[45] Wölfflin’s remarks on the loss of meaning of the reversed image have enjoyed a considerable interest in fields such as experimental psychology as well.

This includes research like that of Mercedes Gaffron, a pupil of Wolfgang Köhler – a major figure in the Gestalt psychology movement – who emigrated to the United States and studied Rembrandt’s prints according to what she baptized the ‘glance curve.’ According to Gaffron, this curve represents the unconscious, typical path that (Western) viewers take when observing two-dimensional perspectival artworks – starting from the lower left foreground, moving upward and rightward, and deeper into the depicted three-dimensional space. Notably, Gaffron posited that only the study of image reversal can reveal the existence of this viewing pattern.^[46] More recently, cognitive and neuroscience studies on the patterns of attention in visual perception and on the role of the lateral organization of pictures in defining aesthetic preference continue to reference Wölfflin in tracing their genealogies and objectives.^[47]

Deeply influenced by Wölfflin’s critique of reversal, cultural semiotics, and Gestalt psychology, Israeli art historian Avigdor Posèq’s exploration of the ‘semantics of laterality’ represents one of the most substantial compilations of material on the subject to date.^[48] The expression applies to images a concept initially developed in the 1960s to address biological and neural asymmetries in the human body.^[49] This includes the specialization of left and right organs, which, for instance, underlies phenomena such as handedness and eye dominance.^[50] However, while Posèq’s writings present numerous case studies, some contrasting artworks from different cultures (notably Jewish), they fall short of engaging with or finely detailing the psycho-physiological dimensions of historical laterality in humans and images.^[51] The question of ‘image laterality’ thus invites additional questions. For example, do images possess their own ‘chirality’ (from the Greek chiros, meaning ‘hand’)? Alongside its related concept, enantiomorphism (from the Greek enantíos, ‘opposite,’ and morph-´e, ‘form’), chirality has significantly extended well beyond its initial use in crystallography – a domain where Lord Kelvin first introduced it in the late nineteenth century.^[52]

Do images exhibit chirality in ways akin not only to humans but also to other entities, such as crystals or molecules? Discourses on chiral and enantiomorphic configurations and properties have become pivotal in disciplines such as chemistry, biology, physics, and astrophysics.^[53] It is within this complex intersection that one encounters the recent, and still rarely discussed, position of philosopher John Michael Krois. “The chief difference between texts and pictures is that the latter embody meanings due to their own chiral form,” according to Krois, who in recent decades has built his argument on a cultural genealogy in which the work of Ernst Cassirer and Charles Sanders Peirce have a prominent role.^[54]

This quotation is central to Krois’s pursuit of a “philosophy of embodiment in connection with Image Act (Bildakt) theory,” aiming to “grasp mankind in equal measure as the creator and product of the forms it itself produces.”^[55] Yet, Krois’s intriguing proposition – that images, akin to bodies, inherently possess their own laterality or chirality – opens up numerous questions. For instance, is chirality an inherent characteristic of every (asymmetrical) image? In considering this, the phenomenon of chirality in crystallography and chemistry can provide further elements to think about: not all chiral crystals and molecules exhibit changes in property in their different chiral configurations.^[56] Albeit in a way certainly less essentialist than with crystals or compounds, for images too, the ‘property changes’ associated with reversal may vary in magnitude. Extending this metaphor, this variability depends on the circumstances of image production and reception, among other factors. By inhabiting shifting cultural and historical contexts, the vast and open-ended ‘experiments’ to which images are subjected give rise to evolving ‘reactions’ and ‘behaviors.’

Unfolding Images, Negotiating Orientation

Early modern print technologies emerge as a particularly fruitful context for seeking deeper and more nuanced interpretative paradigms regarding reversal and image orientation. Beyond aiding in mapping the evolution of notions like accuracy and reproduction, examining how image orientation in printing has been approached over the centuries highlights a distinctive category of image – one that can transcend its original lateral configuration.

Printed images can unfold themselves in constellations of multiple versions, editions, and copies. In the prints after the Laocoön – the renowned Hellenistic statue rediscovered in Rome in 1506 – the orientation of the bodies of the Trojan priest and his children, as they struggle against the sea serpent, mirror each other while migrating across the centuries from one print to another. Artists such as Marco Dente, Nicolas Béatrizet, and Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri have rendered the group facing left, as in the sculpture (figs. 12, 14); others show the Laocoön in reverse, like Giovanni Antonio da Brescia (whose engraving, around 1508, marks the earliest known print following the statue’s unearthing) and Sisto Badalocchio (figs. 11, 13).^[57]

11

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia, Laocoön, ca. 1508, engraving, 28.3 × 25 cm. London, The British Museum

12

Marco Dente, Laocoön, ca. 1515–1517, engraving, 44.3 × 32.9 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

13

Sisto Badalocchio, Laocoön, 1563, etching, 38 × 29.6 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

14

Nicolas Béatrizet, Laocoön, ca. 1545–1570, engraving, 49.1 × 32.1 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To unfold the image means to grapple with the recurrent, unstable, historical condition of its orientation. It involves acknowledging this ‘dance’ of the image, and thinking (historically) about mirror imagery at the intersection of identity and alterity.^[58] Unfolded, images exist in either of their two possible lateral configurations. This inherent reversibility is a condition that proves to be deeply ingrained in transhistorical as well as transmedial migration of images across media.

Weaving technologies and the recto-verso relationship in textiles, the practice of drawing counterproofs and the use of the camera obscura, along with photographic techniques and slide projections – all of these exemplify how left-right reversal is a generative operation across diverse media. Its critical examination, as argued in this article, necessitates a comprehensive approach that considers both the functional and the theoretical handling of various media and their interactions with bodily and mental imagery as brought forward by image makers and viewers. A thorough exploration of these multifaceted contexts alone can fully articulate the concept of reversal and convincingly delineate the negotiation among these different instances.^[59] Examining the spectrum of attitudes towards image reversal thus can offer valuable insights into broader investigations of the history of human perception of form and space, and of different historical visualities,^[60] with attitudes influenced by general cultural epistemes as well as the specific conditions of production and reception that define individual artworks. Thus, the study of reversal emerges as a pivotal theme for addressing specific aspects of the complex and evolving relationship between humans, materials (and their constraints), and the ways in which meaning is produced in and by artworks, at the intersection of the agency of matter, makers, and viewers. Investigations like those presented in this article also seem to hold the potential to open a window into historical modes of image perception that can enrich ongoing debates in contemporary experimental image sciences.

Far from being a mere detail hastily noted in a catalogue entry, orientation in prints mobilizes aesthetic, epistemological, and anthropological issues. There is no linear, homogeneous progression from general disregard of the maintenance of the lateral orientation of images in print, to a specific attention to its conservation. To study the different ways in which reversal has been considered relevant (or not) in European printmaking and its history allows the ‘dance’ of the image – the playful fluidity in the left-right orientation of prints – to emerge as a distinctive subject of research. At stake, as this essay has endeavored to demonstrate within the Western context, is our understanding of the historical as well as transhistorical prerogatives of images themselves – and the ways through which images produce and convey meaning, while unfolding through time and space.

This essay is part of a broader project on orientation and the early modern image. It has benefited from exchanges with many scholars. Among them, I wish to express my special thanks to Stephen Bann, Philippe Bordes, Kathleen Christian, Ralph Dekoninck, Alessandro Nova, Peter Parshall, and Patricia Rubin.