State (printmaking)
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In printmaking, a state is a different form of a print, caused by a deliberate and permanent change to a matrix such as a copper plate (for engravings etc.) or woodblock (for woodcut).
Artists often take prints from a plate (or block, etc.) and then do further work on the plate before printing more impressions (copies). Sometimes two states may be printed on the same day, sometimes several years may elapse between them.
States are usually numbered in
Most authorities do not count accidental damage to a plate – usually scratches on a metal plate or cracks in a woodcut block – as constituting different states, partly because scratches can disappear again after being printed a number of times.[2]
History
The definition of states mostly goes back to
In modern prints, a distinction is made between proof states or working proofs, which are produced before the print is regarded as finished, and other states. This is usually possible because modern prints are issued in
For example, unlike Dürer, for whom relatively few different states survive, Rembrandt prints have often survived in multiple states (up to eleven). It is clear that many of the earlier states are working proofs, made to confirm how the printed image was developing, but it is impossible to draw a confident line between these and other states that Rembrandt may well have regarded as finished at the point he printed them. Rembrandt is one of the most prolific creator of states, and also reworked plates after leaving them for some years.
New states in old master prints are often caused by the adding of inscriptions (signatures, dedications, publishers details, even a price) inside or below the image. Except for signatures, these would often not be added by the artist himself. A wholesale example is Daniel Hopfer, the inventor of etching as a printmaking technique (c. 1500), and other members of his family. In the late 17th century, a distant relative of the Hopfers, David Funck, acquired 230 of the Hopfers' iron plates, and reprinted these under the title Operae Hopferianae, adding a somewhat crudely scratched number, known as the Funck number, to each one, thus creating a second state of the hitherto unretouched plates.
Sometimes another artist may add to a plate, or a (usually) anonymous artist or craftsman would rework a plate which has become worn out by printing. This has now been done to most surviving plates by Rembrandt (often more than once) and many by Goya, Martin Schongauer and others. An example is Forest Marsh with Travellers on a Bank (1640s–1650s), an etching by Jacob van Ruisdael, where another hand later added clouds.
When they develop a keen collector's market, artists have often exploited this by creating extra states. This trend can be seen in, among others, the English
Book collecting
A similar use of "state" is in book collecting, where a particular page may be reset for some reason in the course of printing.[4]
References
- ^ Christopher White, "The Late Etchings of Rembrandt", 1969, British Museum/Lund Humphries, London
- ^ ISBN 0-7141-2608-X
- ^ Langdale, Shelley, Battle of the Nudes: Pollaiuolo's Renaissance Masterpiece, pp. 33–34, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002.
- ^ Antiquarian Booksellers Association – Terms – see S. 4
External links
- Detailed article from the Cleveland Museum of Art, comparing states of the Battle of the Nudes by Antonio del Pollaiuolo