Old master print
An old master print (also spaced masterprint) is a
The main techniques used, in order of their introduction, are woodcut, engraving, etching, mezzotint and aquatint, although there are others. Different techniques are often combined in a single print. With rare exceptions printed on textiles, such as silk, or on vellum, old master prints are printed on paper. This article is concerned with the artistic, historical and social aspects of the subject; the article on printmaking summarizes the techniques used in making old master prints, from a modern perspective.
Many great European artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and Francisco Goya, were dedicated printmakers. In their own day, their international reputations largely came from their prints, which were spread far more widely than their paintings. Influences between artists were also mainly transmitted beyond a single city by prints (and sometimes drawings), for the same reason. Prints therefore are frequently brought up in detailed analyses of individual paintings in art history. Today, thanks to colour photo reproductions, and public galleries, their paintings are much better known, whilst their prints are only rarely exhibited, for conservation reasons. But some museum print rooms allow visitors to see their collection, sometimes only by appointment, and large museums now present great numbers of prints online in very high-resolution enlargeable images.
History
Woodcut before Albrecht Dürer
The oldest technique is woodcut, or woodblock printing, which was invented as a method for printing on cloth in China. This had reached Europe via the
The earliest print images are mostly of a high artistic standard, and were clearly designed by artists with a background in painting (on walls, panels or manuscripts). Whether these artists cut the blocks themselves, or only inked the design on the block for another to carve, is not known. During the fifteenth century the number of prints produced greatly increased as paper became freely available and cheaper, and the average artistic level fell, so that by the second half of the century the typical woodcut is a relatively crude image. The great majority of surviving 15th-century prints are religious, although these were probably the ones more likely to survive. Their makers were sometimes called "Jesus maker" or "saint-maker" in documents. As with manuscript books, monastic institutions sometimes produced, and often sold, prints. No artists can be identified with specific woodcuts until towards the end of the century.[4]
The little evidence we have suggests that woodcut prints became relatively common and cheap during the fifteenth century, and were affordable by skilled workers in towns. For example, what may be the earliest surviving Italian print, the "Madonna of the Fire", was hanging by a nail to a wall in a small school in Forlì in 1428. The school caught fire, and the crowd who gathered to watch saw the print carried up into the air by the fire, before falling down into the crowd. This was regarded as a miraculous escape and the print was carried to Forlì Cathedral, where it remains, since 1636 in a special chapel, displayed once a year. Like the majority of prints before approximately 1460, only a single impression (the term used for a copy of an old master print; "copy" is used for a print copying another print) of this print has survived.[5]
Woodcut blocks are printed with light pressure, and are capable of printing several thousand impressions, and even at this period some prints may well have been produced in that quantity. Many prints were hand-coloured, mostly in
Block-books were a very popular form of (short) book, where a page with both pictures and text was cut as a single woodcut. They were much cheaper than manuscript books, and were mostly produced in the Netherlands; the Art of Dying (Ars moriendi) was the most famous; thirteen different sets of blocks are known.[7] As a relief technique (see printmaking) woodcut can be printed easily together with movable type, and after this invention arrived in Europe about 1450 printers quickly came to include woodcuts in their books. Some book owners also pasted prints into prayer books in particular.[8] Playing cards were another notable use of prints, and French versions are the basis of the traditional sets still in use today.
By the last quarter of the century there was a large demand for woodcuts for book-illustrations, and in both Germany and Italy standards at the top end of the market improved considerably. Nuremberg was the largest centre of German publishing, and Michael Wolgemut, the master of the largest workshop there worked on many projects, including the gigantic Nuremberg Chronicle.[9] Albrecht Dürer was apprenticed to Wolgemut during the early stages of the project, and was the godson of Anton Koberger, its printer and publisher. Dürer's career was to take the art of the woodcut to its highest development.[10]
German engraving before Dürer
Engraving on metal was part of the
The surviving engravings, though the majority are religious, show a greater proportion of secular images than other types of art from the period, including
Again unlike woodcut, identifiable artists are found from the start. The German, or possibly German-Swiss, Master of the Playing Cards was active by at least the 1440s; he was clearly a trained painter.[12] The Master E. S. was a prolific engraver, from a goldsmithing background, active from about 1450–1467, and the first to sign his prints with a monogram in the plate. He made significant technical developments, which allowed more impressions to be taken from each plate. Many of his faces have a rather pudding-like appearance, which reduces the impact of what are otherwise fine works. Much of his work still has great charm, and the secular and comic subjects he engraved are almost never found in the surviving painting of the period. Like the Otto prints in Italy, much of his work was probably intended to appeal to women.[13]
The first major artist to engrave was
The other notable artist of this period is known as the
The earliest Italian engravings
Printmaking in
Florence
Where German engraving arrived into a still Gothic artistic world, Italian engraving caught the very early Renaissance, and from the start the prints are mostly larger, more open in atmosphere, and feature classical and exotic subjects. They are less densely worked, and usually do not use cross-hatching. From about 1460–1490 two styles developed in Florence, which remained the largest centre of Italian engraving. These are called (although the terms are less often used now) the "Fine Manner" and the "Broad Manner", referring to the typical thickness of the lines used. The leading artists in the Fine Manner are Baccio Baldini and the "Master of the Vienna Passion", and in the Broad Manner, Francesco Rosselli and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, whose only print was the Battle of the Nude Men (right), the masterpiece of 15th-century Florentine engraving.[18] This uses a new zigzag "return stroke" for modelling, which he probably invented.[19]
A chance survival is a collection of mostly rather crudely executed Florentine prints now in the British Museum, known as the Otto Prints after an earlier owner of most of them. This was probably the workshop's own reference set of prints, mostly round or oval, that were used to decorate the inside covers of boxes, primarily for female use. It has been suggested that boxes so decorated may have been given as gifts at weddings. The subject matter and execution of this group suggests they were intended to appeal to middle-class female taste; lovers and cupids abound, and an allegory shows a near-naked young man tied to a stake and being beaten by several women.[20]
Ferrara
The other notable early centre was
Mantegna in Mantua
Andrea Mantegna who trained in Padua, and then settled in Mantua, was the most influential figure in Italian engraving of the century, although it is still debated whether he actually engraved any plates himself (a debate revived in recent years by Suzanne Boorsch). A number of engravings have long been ascribed to his school or workshop, with only seven usually given to him personally. The whole group form a coherent stylistic group and very clearly reflect his style in painting and drawing, or copy surviving works of his. They seem to date from the late 1460s onwards.[23]
The impact of Dürer
In the last five years of the fifteenth century, Dürer, then in his late twenties and with his own workshop in Nuremberg, began to produce woodcuts and engravings of the highest quality which spread very quickly through the artistic centres of Europe. By about 1505 most young Italian printmakers went through a phase of directly copying either whole prints or large parts of Dürer's landscape backgrounds, before going on to adapt his technical advances to their own style. Copying of prints was already a large and accepted part of the printmaking culture but no prints were copied as frequently as Dürer's.[24]
Dürer was also a painter, but few of his paintings could be seen except by those with good access to private houses in the Nuremberg area. The lesson of how he, following more spectacularly in the footsteps of Schongauer and Mantegna, was able so quickly to develop a continent-wide reputation very largely through his prints was not lost on other painters, who began to take much greater interest in printmaking.[25]
Italy 1500–1515
For a brief period a number of artists who began by copying Dürer made very fine prints in a range of individual styles. They included Giulio Campagnola, who succeeded in translating the new style Giorgione and Titian had brought to Venetian painting into engraving. Marcantonio Raimondi and Agostino Veneziano both spent some years in Venice before moving to Rome, but even their early prints show classicizing tendencies as well as Northern influence.[26] The styles of the Florentine Cristofano Robetta, and Benedetto Montagna from Vicenza are still based in Italian painting of the period, and are also later influenced by Giulio Campagnola.[27]
Giovanni Battista Palumba, once known as "Master IB with the Bird" from his monogram, was the major Italian artist in woodcut in these years, as well as an engraver of charming mythological scenes, often with an erotic theme.[28]
The rise of the reproductive print
Prints copying prints were already common, and many fifteenth century prints must have been copies of paintings, but not intended to be seen as such, but as images in their own right. Mantegna's workshop produced a number of engravings copying his Triumph of Caesar (now Hampton Court Palace), or drawings for it, which were perhaps the first prints intended to be understood as depicting paintings—called reproductive prints. With an increasing pace of innovation in art, and of a critical interest among a non-professional public, reliable depictions of paintings filled an obvious need. In time this demand was almost to smother the old master print.[29]
Dürer never copied any of his paintings directly into prints, although some of his portraits base a painting and a print on the same drawing, which is very similar. The next stage began when Titian in Venice, and Raphael in Rome, almost simultaneously began to collaborate with printmakers to make prints to their designs. Titian at this stage worked with Domenico Campagnola and others on woodcuts, whilst Raphael worked with Raimondi on engravings, for which many of Raphael's drawings survive.[30] Rather later, the paintings done by the School of Fontainebleau were copied in etchings, apparently in a brief organised programme including many of the painters themselves.[31]
The Italian partnerships were artistically and commercially successful, and inevitably attracted other printmakers who simply copied paintings independently to make wholly reproductive prints. Especially in Italy, these prints, of greatly varying quality, came to dominate the market and tended to push out original printmaking, which declined noticeably from about 1530–1540 in Italy. By now some publisher/dealers had become important, especially Dutch and Flemish operators like
The North after Dürer
Although no artist anywhere from 1500 to 1550 could ignore Dürer, several artists in his wake had no difficulty maintaining highly distinctive styles, often with little influence from him. Lucas Cranach the Elder was only a year younger than Dürer, but he was about thirty before he began to make woodcuts, in an intense Northern style reminiscent of Matthias Grünewald. He was also an early experimenter in the chiaroscuro woodcut technique. His style later softened, and took in the influence of Dürer, but he concentrated his efforts on painting, in which he became dominant in Protestant Germany, based in Saxony, handing over his very productive studio to his son at a relatively early age.[33]
Lucas van Leyden had a prodigious natural talent for engraving, and his earlier prints were highly successful, with an often earthy treatment and brilliant technique, so that he came to be seen as Dürer's main rival in the North. However, his later prints suffered from straining after an Italian grandeur, which left only the technique applied to far less dynamic compositions. Like Dürer, he had a "flirtation" with etching, but on copper rather than iron. His Dutch successors for some time continued to be heavily under the spell of Italy, which they took most of the century to digest.[34]
Albrecht Altdorfer produced some Italianate religious prints, but he is most famous for his very Northern landscapes of drooping larches and firs, which are highly innovative in painting as well as prints. He was among the most effective early users of the technique of etching, recently invented as a printmaking technique by Daniel Hopfer, an armourer from Augsburg. Neither Hopfer nor the other members of his family who continued his style were trained or natural artists, but many of their images have great charm, and their "ornament prints", made essentially as patterns for craftsmen in various fields, spread their influence widely.[35]
The Little Masters
The
Another convinced Protestant, Hans Holbein the Younger, spent most of his adult career in England, then and for long after too primitive as both a market and in technical assistance to support fine printmaking. Whilst the famous blockcutter Hans Lützelburger was alive, he created from Holbein's designs the famous small woodcut series of the Dance of Death. Another Holbein series, of ninety-one Old Testament scenes, in a much simpler style, was the most popular of attempts by several artists to create Protestant religious imagery. Both series were published in Lyon in France by a German publisher, having been created in Switzerland.[40]
After the deaths of this very brilliant generation, both the quality and quantity of German original printmaking suffered a strange collapse; perhaps it became impossible to sustain a convincing Northern style in the face of overwhelming Italian productions in a "commoditized" Renaissance style. The Netherlands now became more important for the production of prints, which would remain the case until the late 18th century.[41]
Mannerist printmaking
Some Italian printmakers went in a very different direction to either Raimondi and his followers, or the Germans, and used the medium for experimentation and very personal work. Parmigianino produced some etchings himself, and also worked closely with Ugo da Carpi on chiaroscuro woodcuts and other prints.[42]
France
The Italian artists known as the
Previously the only consistent printmaker of stature in France had been Jean Duvet, a goldsmith whose highly personal style seems halfway between Dürer and William Blake. His plates are extremely crowded, not conventionally well-drawn, but full of intensity; the opposite of the languorous elegance of the Fontainebleau prints, which were to have the greater effect on French printmaking. His prints date from 1520 to 1555, when he was seventy, and completed his masterpiece, the twenty-three prints of the Apocalypse.[45]
The Netherlands
Goltzius, arguably the last great engraver, took Cort's style to its furthest point. Because of a childhood accident, he drew with his whole arm, and his use of the swelling line, altering the profile of the burin to thicken or diminish the line as it moved, is unmatched. He was extraordinarily prolific, and the artistic, if not the technical, quality of his work is very variable, but his finest prints look forward to the energy of Rubens, and are as sensuous in their use of line as he is in paint.[47]
At the same time
Meanwhile, numerous other engravers in the Netherlands continued to produce vast numbers of reproductive and illustrative prints of widely varying degrees of quality and appeal—the two by no means always going together. Notable dynasties, often publishers as well as artists, include the
17th century and the age of Rembrandt
The 17th century saw a continuing increase in the volume of commercial and reproductive printmaking;
Rembrandt bought a printing-press for his house in the days of his early prosperity, and continued to produce etchings (always so called collectively, although Rembrandt mixed techniques by adding engraving and drypoint to some of his etchings) until his bankruptcy, when he lost both house and press. Fortunately his prints have always been keenly collected, and what seems to be a high proportion of his intermediate states have survived, often in only one or two impressions. He was clearly very directly involved in the printing process himself, and probably selectively wiped the plate of ink himself to produce effects surface tone on many impressions. He also experimented continually with the effects of different papers. He produced prints on a wider range of subjects than his paintings, with several pure landscapes, many self-portraits that are often more extravagantly fanciful than his painted ones, some erotic (at any rate obscene) subjects, and a great number of religious prints. He became increasingly interested in strong lighting effects, and very dark backgrounds. His reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left Holland whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, and his wider reputation was initially based on them alone.[51]
A number of other
Jusepe de Ribera may have learned etching in Rome, but all his fewer than thirty prints were made in Naples during the 1620s when his career as a painter seems to have been in the doldrums. When the painting commissions began to flow again, he all but abandoned printmaking. His plates were sold after his death to a Rome publisher, who made a better job of marketing them than Ribera himself. His powerful and direct style developed almost immediately, and his subjects and style remain close to those of his paintings.[54]
Callot's technical innovations in improving the recipes for etching ground were crucial in allowing etching to rival the detail of engraving, and in the long term spelt the end of artistic engraving. Previously the unreliable nature of the grounds used meant that artists could not risk investing too much effort in an etched plate, as the work might be ruined by leaks in the ground. Equally, multiple stoppings-out, enabling lines etched to different depths by varying lengths of exposure to the acid, had been too risky.[56] Callot led the way in exploiting the new possibilities; most of his etchings are small but full of tiny detail, and he developed a sense of recession in landscape backgrounds in etching with multiple bitings to etch the background more lightly than the foreground. He also used a special etching needle called an échoppe to produce swelling lines like those created by the burin in an engraving, and also reinforced the etched lines with a burin after biting; which soon became common practice among etchers. Callot etched a great variety of subjects in over 1400 prints, from grotesques to his tiny but extremely powerful series Les Grandes Misères de la guerre.[57] Abraham Bosse, a Parisian illustrative etcher popularized Callot's methods in a hugely successful manual for students. His own work is successful in his declared aim of making etchings look like engravings, and is highly evocative of French life at the middle of the century.
The last third of the century produced relatively little original printmaking of great interest, although illustrative printmaking reached a high level of quality. French portrait prints, most often copied from paintings, were the finest in Europe and often extremely brilliant, with the school including both etching and engraving, often in the same work. The most important artists were Claude Mellan, an etcher from the 1630s onwards, and his contemporary Jean Morin, whose combination of engraving and etching influenced many later artists. Robert Nanteuil was official portrait engraver to Louis XIV, and produced over two hundred brilliantly engraved portraits of the court and other notable French figures.[62]
Fine art printmaking after Rembrandt's death
The extremely popular engravings of William Hogarth in England were little concerned with technical printmaking effects; in many he was producing reproductive prints of his own paintings (a surprisingly rare thing to do) that only set out to convey his crowded moral compositions as clearly as possible. It would not be possible, without knowing, to distinguish these from his original prints, which have the same aim. He priced his prints to reach a middle and even upper working-class market, and was brilliantly successful in this.[63]
The technical means at the disposal of reproductive printmakers continued to develop, and many superb and sought-after prints were produced by the English
The rise of the
William Blake was as technically unconventional as he was in subject-matter and everything else, pioneering a relief etching process that was later to become the dominant technique of commercial illustration for a time. Many of his prints are pages for his books, with text and image on the same plate, as in the 15th century block-books.[69] The Romantic Movement saw a revival in original printmaking in several countries, with Germany taking a large part once again; many of the Nazarene movement were printmakers.[70] In England, John Sell Cotman etched many landscapes and buildings in an effective, straightforward style. J. M. W. Turner produced several print series including one, the Liber Studiorum, which consisted of seventy-one etchings with mezzotint that were influential on landscape artists; according to Linda Hults, this series of prints amounts to "Turner's manual of landscape types, and ... a statement of his philosophy of landscape."[71] With the relatively few etchings of Delacroix the period of the old master print can be said to come to an end.[72]
Printmaking was to revive powerfully
Inscriptions
Printmakers who signed their work often added inscriptions which characterised the nature of their contribution.
A list with their definitions includes:[74]
- Ad vivum indicates that a portrait was done "from life" and not after a painting, e.g., Aug. de St. Aubin al vivum delin. et sculp.
- Aq., aquaf., aquafortis denote the etcher
- D., del., delin., delineavit refer to the draughtsman
- Des., desig. refer to the designer
- Direx., Direxit. show direction or superintendence of pupil by master
- Ex., exc., excu., excud., excudit, excudebat indicate the publisher
- F., fe., ft, fec., fect, fecit, fa., fac., fact, faciebat indicate by whom the engraving was "made" or executed
- Formis, like excudit, describes the act of publication
- Imp. indicates the printer
- Inc., inci., incid., incidit, incidebat refer to him who "incised" or engraved the plate
- Inv., invenit, inventor mark the "inventor" or designer of the picture
- Lith. does not mean "lithographed by," but "printed by". Thus, Lith. de C. Motte, Lith. Lasteyrie, I. lith. de Delpech refer to lithographic printing establishments
- P., pictor, pingebat, pinx, pinxt, pinxit show who painted the picture from which the engraving was made
- S., sc., scul., sculpsit, sculpebat, sculptor appear after the engraver's name
Notes
- ^ Griffiths (1980), 16.
- ^ Field, Richard (1965). Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art.
- ^ Hind (1935).
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 1–6, quotes 2, 33–42. Mayor, 5–10.
- ^ Mayor, 10.
- ^ Mayor, 14–17.
- ^ Mayor, 24–27.
- ^ A number have survived pasted on the inside of the lids of boxes or chests, like this example.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 34–42. Mayor, 32–60. Bartrum (1995), 17–19.
- ^ Bartrum, 17–63. Landau and Parshall, 167–174.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 46–51, 64.
- ^ Shestack (1967a), numbers 1–2. Mayor, 115–117.
- ^ Shestack (1967b). Shestack (1967a), numbers 4–19. Spangeberg, 1–3. Mayor, 118–123. Landau and Parshall, 46–50.
- ^ Shestack (1967a), numbers 34–115. Landau and Parshall, 50–56. Mayor, 130–135. Spangeberg, 5–7. Bartrum, 20–21.
- ^ Filedt Kok. Mayor, 124–129.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 56–63. Mayor, 138–140.
- ^ Levinson. Landau and Parshall, 65.
- ^ Langdale. Landau and Parshall, 65, 72–76.
- ^ Langdale.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 89. Levinson.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 71–72. Spangeberg, 4–5.
- ^ Levinson, no. 83.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 65–71. Mayor, 187–197. Spangeberg, 16–17.
- ^ Bartrum (2002). Bartrum (1995), 22–63. Landau and Parshall, see index. Mayor, 258–281.
- ^ Pon. Landau and Parshall, 347–358. Bartrum (1995), 9–11.
- ^ Pon. Landau and Parshall, see index.
- ^ Levinson, 289–334, 390–414. Landau and Parshall, 65–102 (see also index). Mayor, 143–156, 173, 223, 232.
- ^ Levinson, 440–455. Landau and Parshall, 199, 102.
- ^ Pon. Landau & Parshall, chapter IV, whose emphasis is disputed by Bury, 9–12.
- ^ Pon. Landau and Parshall, 117–146.
- ^ Jacobson, parts III and IV.
- ^ Landau and Parshall develop the traditional view of decline, which Bury contests in his Introduction, pp. 9–12, and seeks to demonstrate the opposite view throughout his work.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 166–178.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 316–319, 332–333, 333 quoted.
- ^ Mayor, 228, 304–308, 567. Bartrum (1995), 11–12, 144, 158, 183–197. Landau and Parshall, 323–328 (Hopfers); 202–209, 337–346 (Altdorfer).
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 130–146. Landau and Parshall, see index, 179–202 on the chiaroscuro woodcut.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 67–80.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 212–221.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 99–129. Mayor, 315–317. Landau and Parshall, 315–316.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 221–237.
- ^ Bartrum (1995), 12–13.
- ^ Landau and Parshall, 146–161.
- ^ Bury. Reed and Walsh, 105–114 on Annibale and subsequent artists in etching. Mayor, 410, 516.
- ^ Jacobson, parts III and IV. Mayor, 354–357.
- ^ Marqusee. Jacobson, part II. Mayor, 358–359.
- ^ Mayor, 403–407, 410.
- ^ Mayor, 419–421. Spangeberg, 107–108.
- ^ Mayor, 422–426.
- ^ Mayor, 373–376, 408–410.
- ^ Mayor, 427–432.
- ^ White; Mayor, 472–505; Spangeberg, 164–168.
- ^ Mayor, 467–471. Spangeberg, 156–158 (Seghers), 170 (van Ostade), 177 (Berchem).
- ^ Reed and Wallace, 262–271. Mayor, 526–527.
- ^ Reed and Wallace, 279–285.
- ^ Griffiths and Hartley. Jacobson, part X. Mayor, 453–460.
- ^ Mayor, 455–460.
- ^ Hind (1923), 158–160.
- ^ Mayor, 344.
- ^ Reed and Wallace, 234–243. Mayor, 520–521, 538, 545.
- ^ Mayor, 433–435.
- ^ Griffiths (1980), 83–88. Mayor, 511–515.
- ^ Mayor, 289–290.
- ^ Mayor, 550–555.
- ^ Mayor, 576–584.
- ^ Griffiths (1996), 134–158 on English mezzotints and their collectors.
- ^ Spangeberg, 221–222. Mayor, 591–600.
- ^ Mayor, 568, 591–600.
- ^ Bareau. Mayor, 624–631.
- ^ Mayor, 608–611. Spangeberg, 262.
- ^ Griffiths and Carey.
- ^ Hults, 522.
- ^ Spangeberg, 260–261
- ^ Mayor, 660 onwards. Spangeberg, 263 onwards.
- ^ Weintenkampf, 278–279.
References
- ISBN 0-7141-0789-1
- ISBN 0-7141-2604-7
- ISBN 0-7141-2633-0
- Bury, Michael; The Print in Italy, 1550–1620, 2001, British Museum Press, ISBN 0-7141-2629-2
- Filedt Kok, J.P. (ed.), Livelier than Life, The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, or the Housebook Master 1470–1500, Rijksmuseum/Garry Schwartz/Princeton University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-691-04035-4
- ISBN 0-7141-2608-X
- Griffiths, Antony and Carey, Francis; German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe, 1994, British Museum Press, ISBN 0-7141-1659-9
- Griffiths, Antony & Hartley, Craig (1997), Jacques Bellange, c. 1575–1616, Printmaker of Lorraine. London: British Museum Press ISBN 0-7141-2611-X
- Griffiths, Antony, ed. (1996), Landmarks in Print Collecting: connoisseurs and donors at the British Museum since 1753. London: British Museum Press ISBN 0-7141-2609-8
- ISBN 0-486-20954-7)
- Hind, Arthur M. (1935), An Introduction to a History of Woodcut. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Co. (reprinted by Dover Publications, New York, 1963 ISBN 0-486-20952-0)
- Hults, Linda, The Print in the Western World: An Introductory History, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1996,
- Karen Jacobson, ed (often wrongly cat. as ISBN 0-9628162-2-1
- Landau, David & Parshall, Peter (1996), The Renaissance Print. New Haven: Yale U. P. ISBN 0-300-06883-2
- Langdale, Shelley, Battle of the Nudes: Pollaiuolo's Renaissance Masterpiece, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002.
- Levinson, J. A., ed., Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art LCCN 73-79624
- Michael Marqusee, The Revelation of Saint John; Apocalypse Engravings by Jean Duvet, Paddington Press, London, 1976, ISBN 0-8467-0148-0
- Mayor, A. Hyatt, Prints and People, Princeton, NJ: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Princeton U. P. fully online from the MMA
- Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi, Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, 2004, Yale UP, ISBN 978-0-300-09680-4
- Reed, Sue Welsh & Wallace, Richard, eds. (1989) Italian Etchers of the Renaissance and Baroque. Boston, Mass.: Museum of Fine Arts ISBN 0-87846-306-2
- Shestack, Alan (1967a) Fifteenth-century Engravings of Northern Europe. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art LCCN 67-29080(Catalogue)
- Shestack, Alan (1967b), Master E.S.Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art
- Spangeberg, K. L., ed., Six Centuries of Master Prints. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum ISBN 0-931537-15-0
- Weitenkampf, Frank (1921). How to Appreciate Prints, third revised edition (at Internet Archive). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- White, Christopher, The Late Etchings of Rembrandt. London: British Museum/Lund Humphries
External links
- The Printed Image in the West: History and Techniques from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Timeline of Art
- Large list of links to museum etc. online images of old master prints Archived 2016-08-23 at the Wayback Machine
- Washington Post review of NGA exhibition on C15 German woodcuts
- Old master prints blog