The Practitioners of the Visual Arts, Cornelis Cort, after Jan van der Straet, 1578
Cornelis Cort made this depiction of an idealized art academy about 150 years after the appearance of the first engraved prints. Depicted prominently in the right foreground is the art of printmaking in the guise of an engraver cutting the first lines in a plate with a burin. The art of printmaking is here on an equal footing with the traditional visual arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture): it has claimed its rightful place as a fully-fledged art form!