The print before photography : an introduction to European printmaking, 1550-1820 / Antony Griffiths.

  • Griffiths, Antony
Date:
2016
  • Books

About this work

Description

A landmark publication that catalogues the history and development of the printed image Gutenberg's invention of moveable type made it possible to print letters. But images could only be printed using two other technologies that were developed alongside letterpress. One depended on wooden blocks which were cut and printed in relief, the other on copper plates into which lines were cut by engraving or etching and were printed on a rolling press. Copper-plate printmaking developed into a huge business employing thousands of people, and dominated image production for nearly four centuries across the whole of Europe. Its processes remained very stable, and a man of 1500 could have walked into a printing shop of 1800 and understood what was going on. During the nineteenth century this world was displaced by new technologies, of which photography was by far the most important.

Publication/Creation

London : The British Museum Press, 2016.

Physical description

560 pages : illustrations (some colour), maps (some colour), facsimiles (some colour) ; 30 cm

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 501-545) and indexes.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: 1. The European print 1550 -- 1820 -- pt. I PRINT PRODUCTION -- 2. The technology and its implications -- Copper plates -- Paper -- Other supplies: etching grounds, acid, burins -- Transferring designs -- Reversal -- The process of engraving and etching Jo Working proofs and̀ touching' -- Lettering -- Proof slates made for sale Rolling presses -- Priming -- Printers -- Woodcut -- The time required to produce plates in the intaglio techniques -- 3. The printing capacity of copper plates -- The printing capacity of engraved plates -- The printing capacity of etched plates -- The printing capacity of mezzotint and drypoint -- The priming capacity or stipple and oilier processes -- The mass-market trade -- Woodcut -- Contemporary views about retouching and reworking -- 4. The costs and profitability of new print production -- Costs of woodcut -- Costs of engraving -- Fixed costs (copper, engraving, lettering, designs) -- Variable costs (paper, ink and printing) -- Some representative costings -- Break even points and profitability in engraving -- Profitability of other intaglio processes -- Delays in production -- How long was a print run? -- Economics in printing -- 5. Lettering, language and text -- Lettering styles -- Languages -- Terms relating to the printmaker and designer -- Terms relating to the publisher -- Privileges, publication lines and dedications -- Verses on prints -- Texts on prints and the interpretation of paintings -- Titles -- Absent loitering -- Incomplete lettering -- Inaccurate and misleading lettering -- Text added after publication -- 6. The print and the state: censorship, copyright, privileges, taxation and promotion -- Censorship and prosecutions for publishing prints -- Licences to publish prints -- Copyright -- Privileges -- Multiple privileges -- Procedures and types of privilege -- Notes oil privileges by country -- Taxation -- Court engravers -- Slate mercantilism -- 7. Copying prints -- The extent of copying -- The methods and costs of copying -- Unlawful copying -- Copying within the law -- Replicas -- Authorized or permitted copies -- Pastiches -- Drawn copies -- Harmless copying -- The swipe -- Copying as an industry -- 8. Reprinting plates and blocks -- The value and reuse of plates -- The survival of plates and blocks -- Altering plates and blocks -- The profitability of reprinting -- The trade in second-hand plates -- The scale and length of reprinting -- Plates and collectors -- 9. Colouring prints -- Attitudes to colouring -- Methods of colouring -- The colouring trade and its levels -- Publishers' colouring -- Retailers' colouring -- Some special cases -- Bespoke colouring -- Colouring to match the original -- Outline etchings for colouring -- Other types of colouring and decorating prints -- Primed colour -- The printed painting -- Colour values in black and white -- 10. Single sheets, pairs, sets and oeuvres -- Single sheets: sizes and formats -- Pairs for framing -- Sets, series, suites: some general remarks -- The Netherlandish development of the set -- Extending and altering series -- Retrospectivè false' series -- Books of prints -- The recueil (the collected edition) -- The oeuvre -- 11. Book illustration -- Combining illustrations with text -- Frontispieces, title-plates and authors' portraits -- Producing a set of book illustrations -- Covering The costs of illustrated editions -- Ways of further exploiting a set of plates -- The involvement of authors in financing plates -- The importance of book illustration for the print trade -- Bibliophiles and Collectors -- 12. The survival and loss of prints -- Collectors' prints -- The law of print survival -- The problem of the quantification of losses -- Literary evidence for losses -- Lost types of prints -- Surviving prints with unfamiliar and Forgotten functions -- Prints intended for pairing -- Cut-Outs (decoupage) -- pt. II THE EUROPEAN PRINT TRADE -- 13. The European print trade 1550 -- 1820 -- 14. The participants in the print trade -- 15. The printmaker -- Apprenticeships and training in drawing -- Specialist and general engravers -- Employees and subcontractors -- Advancing a career: travel and further training -- Working independently on commission -- Publishing on one's own account -- Selling -- Further Options -- Jean Daulle -- 16. The painter and designer -- The legal and moral background -- The artist's interest in prints of his work -- Artists' supply of designs for the print trade -- Collaborations between painters and engravers -- The painter as publisher -- The painter as printmaker -- The painter's etching -- Printmaking and history painting -- The auctor intellectualis -- Constable on print publishing -- 17. The publisher: finance and production -- Publishers who emerged from the print trade -- Establishing a business as a print publisher eye Backers -- The large-scale publishing dynasties -- Partnerships and corporate publishing -- Publishers who remained anonymous -- Strategy and specialization -- Publishers as individuals: the variety of background and approach -- 18. The publisher: distribution -- Direct sale by the printmaker or painter -- Wholesale distribution at fairs -- Exchanging stock -- The correspondent -- Terms of trade -- Discounts and length of credit -- Accounting and payments -- Importers and exporters -- Publishing for distribution in another country -- Packing prints -- Shipping prints -- The reach of the European print trade -- 19. Patronage and subsidized publication -- Patronage and subsidy -- Dedications -- Rewards for dedication -- Presentations -- Specialist and scientific publications -- Sponsored illustrations in books -- Gallery' and collection series -- Fund-raising and charity plates -- 20. Non-commercial State and private publication -- State-sponsored publications -- State control of publications -- Festival books and prints -- Private plates -- Thesis prints -- Amateur printmakers -- 21. The printseller -- The great print sellers -- Lesser printsellers -- Other shops that sold prints -- Selling from Stalls -- The print shop and its development -- Changes in demand in the later eighteenth century -- The antiquarian trade -- Restorers and mounters -- Auctions -- Selling antiquarian stock by catalogue -- 22. Marketing, advertising and subscriptions -- Catalogues and stock lists -- Promotional fliers and other ephemera -- Newspaper advertising -- Announcements and reviews -- Selling prints by Subscription -- Exhibitions -- 23. The buyer -- Buyers and their prints -- Prices and affordability -- The relationship of new to antiquarian prints -- Shopping for prints -- Speculation -- Looking al and enjoying prints -- 24. Cheap prints and the itinerant trade -- The country pedlar -- The urban street seller -- The publishers of cheap prints -- Woodcut or engraving? -- The range of the middle and lower market -- Thè popular' print and international subject-matter -- The cheap print as big business -- pt. III THE USE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRINT -- 25. The variety of the print -- Some contemporary views on the utility of the print -- Three examples of the variety of prints within a single class -- Prints as historical evidence -- 26. The display and storage of prints -- Multiple-sheet prints -- Prints pasted on walls -- Domestic display and framing of single-sheet prints -- Glazing prints -- Styles of framing in the eighteenth century -- Storing prints -- Albums -- Portfolios -- Mounts -- 27. Print collecting -- Prim buyers and print collectors -- The world of the print collector -- Connoisseurship -- First impressions ̀(premieres epreuves') -- Rarity -- Fakery -- Some common types of print collecting -- The complexity of print collecting -- The taxonomy of print collections -- The ideal print collection -- The history of print collecting -- 28. The knowledge and literature of prints -- The first publications on prints -- The beginnings of the print catalogue -- The position around 1700 -- The expert and unpublished knowledge -- The rise of the oeuvre catalogue -- The new wave of publications in the later eighteenth century -- The public collection and exhibition -- 29. The understanding and usage of the print in the art world -- Thè constprent': the print as art independent work of art -- Disegni a stampa' and the chiaroscuro woodcut -- The print as product of the artist's studio -- The rise of painting and the professional engraver -- The print as facsimile -- The print as translation -- The status of the engraver vis-a-vis the painter -- Prints as training material -- Prints as a crutch for the poor artist -- Prints and artistic originality -- 30. The hierarchy of the techniques of printmaking -- Burin engraving -- Mixed engraving and etching -- Miniaturist etching -- Etching for the trade -- The painter's etching -- Girard Audran and the etching of history -- The origin of the method of Bartsch -- Mezzotint -- Stipple and aquatint -- Woodcut -- Tail-piece -- Coda -- 31. The print since 1820 -- Steel plates -- Lithography -- Wood-engraving -- Photography -- The position of the hand-made processes -- The changed understanding of the hand-made print.

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Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9780714126951
  • 0714126950