This symposium focuses on the relationship between graphic and painting skills/products and the formation of knowledge in early modern Europe. It is particularly interested in the process of image-making, the role of image-makers in knowledge-formation and dissemination, and how the material production of images in art and science interacted with the development of bodies of knowledge. This addresses the congress theme of ‘Knowledge at work’ on several levels, by attending to the role and status of ‘artists’ and ‘artisans’, the function of images (both manuscript and printed) in communication about science, and the relationship between knowledge-making enterprises described as ‘science’ and those that are not.