DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0052
3 6
Early German and Flemish JVoodcuts.
were printed, each from a separate block. I refer to certain illnstra-
tions in Missals printed by Erhard Eatdolt at Augsburg between
1490 and 1500.
Eatdolt printed astronomical diagrams even in three colours—red,
orange, and black—before he left Yenice in 1486,1 and after he returned
to Augsburg the majority of his books clown to 1516 contain specimens
of printing in red and black (heraldic woodcuts, initials, and printer’s
marks). In the illustrations in question, however, the colour-printing
is much more elaborate tlian this, four colour-blocks being used in
acidition to the ordinary black outline-block. The earliest specimens
with which I am acquainted, and the only ones to be seen in the
Eritish Museum, are in the Brixen Missal of Aug. 17, 1493.2 The
black outline-block of the Crucifhdon in the Canon, wliich may be
seen in the ordinary hand-coloured state in the Freising Missal of
1492,3 is here supplemented by four colour-blocks—bright red,
yellow-ochre, dull steel-blue, and olive-green. Even the drops of
bloocl are printed from the red block and then touched up by hand,
while the crown of thorns and the initial E of the prayer beneath the
woodcut have been printed from the green block. There is in fact
no hand-eolouring except the blue of the sky, a little flesb-colour
(now brownish in tint), ancl the pale pink of the border. It is certain,
not only from the sharp outline of eacli separate colour, but also
from the deep impression which eacli colour-mass has left even on a
vellum leaf, that the colour was not laid on witli stencils but printed
in the press from separate blocks. The frontispiece of the same
volume, witli the patron saints of Brisen, is coloured by hand
in the ordinary way, but at the end of the calendar there is a
handsome cut of the arms of Elorian Waldauf von Waldenstein
printed frorn three blocks, black, red, and yellow-ochre. Similar
specimens of colour-printing from Eatdolt’s press may be seen
in the Passau Missal of 1494 (in tlie Cabinet of Prints at Berlin
tlie Paris copy lias only the frontispiece, not the Crucifixion, but
tliere is a beautiful impression of the latter on vellum, detached from
tlie book, in the Hofbibliothek, Yienna), and in the Augsburg
Missal of 1496 and tlie Passau Missal of 1498 4 (both in the Berlin
1 See G. E. Redgrave : “E. Ratdolt and Ms Workat Venice,” monograpli publislied
for the Bibliographical Society, 1894, p. 16, witb a reproduction in colours of a cut
from Sacrobosco, Sphtcra mundi, 1485 (Hain, 14111; Proctor, 4402). This is the only cut
in the book in which red occurs, but a dingy brown is found in other diagrams, as well
as the orange, in combination witli a black outline.
2 Hain, 11273 ; Proctor, 1900.
3 Hain, 11303; Proctor, 1895.
4 A facsimile of the frontispiece of the latter Missal, SS. Valentine, Stephen, and
Maximilian, printed in four colours in addition to black, has recently been published
in Dr. Lippmann’s “ Engravings and Woodcuts by Old Masters,” x, 49.
Early German and Flemish JVoodcuts.
were printed, each from a separate block. I refer to certain illnstra-
tions in Missals printed by Erhard Eatdolt at Augsburg between
1490 and 1500.
Eatdolt printed astronomical diagrams even in three colours—red,
orange, and black—before he left Yenice in 1486,1 and after he returned
to Augsburg the majority of his books clown to 1516 contain specimens
of printing in red and black (heraldic woodcuts, initials, and printer’s
marks). In the illustrations in question, however, the colour-printing
is much more elaborate tlian this, four colour-blocks being used in
acidition to the ordinary black outline-block. The earliest specimens
with which I am acquainted, and the only ones to be seen in the
Eritish Museum, are in the Brixen Missal of Aug. 17, 1493.2 The
black outline-block of the Crucifhdon in the Canon, wliich may be
seen in the ordinary hand-coloured state in the Freising Missal of
1492,3 is here supplemented by four colour-blocks—bright red,
yellow-ochre, dull steel-blue, and olive-green. Even the drops of
bloocl are printed from the red block and then touched up by hand,
while the crown of thorns and the initial E of the prayer beneath the
woodcut have been printed from the green block. There is in fact
no hand-eolouring except the blue of the sky, a little flesb-colour
(now brownish in tint), ancl the pale pink of the border. It is certain,
not only from the sharp outline of eacli separate colour, but also
from the deep impression which eacli colour-mass has left even on a
vellum leaf, that the colour was not laid on witli stencils but printed
in the press from separate blocks. The frontispiece of the same
volume, witli the patron saints of Brisen, is coloured by hand
in the ordinary way, but at the end of the calendar there is a
handsome cut of the arms of Elorian Waldauf von Waldenstein
printed frorn three blocks, black, red, and yellow-ochre. Similar
specimens of colour-printing from Eatdolt’s press may be seen
in the Passau Missal of 1494 (in tlie Cabinet of Prints at Berlin
tlie Paris copy lias only the frontispiece, not the Crucifixion, but
tliere is a beautiful impression of the latter on vellum, detached from
tlie book, in the Hofbibliothek, Yienna), and in the Augsburg
Missal of 1496 and tlie Passau Missal of 1498 4 (both in the Berlin
1 See G. E. Redgrave : “E. Ratdolt and Ms Workat Venice,” monograpli publislied
for the Bibliographical Society, 1894, p. 16, witb a reproduction in colours of a cut
from Sacrobosco, Sphtcra mundi, 1485 (Hain, 14111; Proctor, 4402). This is the only cut
in the book in which red occurs, but a dingy brown is found in other diagrams, as well
as the orange, in combination witli a black outline.
2 Hain, 11273 ; Proctor, 1900.
3 Hain, 11303; Proctor, 1895.
4 A facsimile of the frontispiece of the latter Missal, SS. Valentine, Stephen, and
Maximilian, printed in four colours in addition to black, has recently been published
in Dr. Lippmann’s “ Engravings and Woodcuts by Old Masters,” x, 49.