DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51584#0176
172
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
great quantities at Augsburg, Nuremberg, and
Venice; and that the next application of the art was
devotional; it was used to multiply rude figures of
saints, which were distributed among the common
people. The earliest woodcut known is a coarse
figure of St. Christopher, dated 1423. This curi-
osity exists in the library of Earl Spencer at
Althorpe.* Another impression, which is declared
by connoisseurs to be a little later, is in the Royal
Library at Paris, where it is framed and hung up
for the inspection of the curious. Rude, ill-drawn,
grotesque—printed with some brownish fluid on
the coarsest ill-coloured paper—still it is impossible
to look at it without some of the curiosity, interest,
and reverence with which we regard the first printed
book, though it must be allowed that, in comparison
with this first sorry specimen of a wood-cut, the
first book was a beautiful performance.
Up to a late period, the origin of engraving on
copper was involved in a like obscurity, and vo-
lumes of controversy have been written on the sub-
ject ; some claiming the invention for Germany,
others for Italy: at length, however, the indefati-
gable researches of antiquarians and connoisseurs,
aided by the accidental discovery in 1794 of the
first impression from a metal plate, have set the
* A reduced imitation of this earliest known woodcut is
annexed, for which we .are indebted to Mr, Jackson, who
engraved it for his ‘ Treatise on Wood-Engraving.’
EARLY ITALIAN PAINTERS.
great quantities at Augsburg, Nuremberg, and
Venice; and that the next application of the art was
devotional; it was used to multiply rude figures of
saints, which were distributed among the common
people. The earliest woodcut known is a coarse
figure of St. Christopher, dated 1423. This curi-
osity exists in the library of Earl Spencer at
Althorpe.* Another impression, which is declared
by connoisseurs to be a little later, is in the Royal
Library at Paris, where it is framed and hung up
for the inspection of the curious. Rude, ill-drawn,
grotesque—printed with some brownish fluid on
the coarsest ill-coloured paper—still it is impossible
to look at it without some of the curiosity, interest,
and reverence with which we regard the first printed
book, though it must be allowed that, in comparison
with this first sorry specimen of a wood-cut, the
first book was a beautiful performance.
Up to a late period, the origin of engraving on
copper was involved in a like obscurity, and vo-
lumes of controversy have been written on the sub-
ject ; some claiming the invention for Germany,
others for Italy: at length, however, the indefati-
gable researches of antiquarians and connoisseurs,
aided by the accidental discovery in 1794 of the
first impression from a metal plate, have set the
* A reduced imitation of this earliest known woodcut is
annexed, for which we .are indebted to Mr, Jackson, who
engraved it for his ‘ Treatise on Wood-Engraving.’