DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7597#0124
chap, ii.] AND THE ANNUNCIATION, A. D. 1423.
91
prepared the design from which the print was immediately en-
graved, had no part in the invention of the piece ; except that of
introducing the fish under the feet of the saint, the diminutive mill
in the fore-ground, and the other accessories; all of them so far
beneath criticism, that one would almost suppose it had been his
intention, by surrounding St. Christopher with such absurdities, to
bring the saint into disrepute.
Within the other cover of the same manuscript, another wood-
print is pasted, representing " The Annunciation of the Virgin."
It is undoubtedly the production of the same artist who engraved
the St. Christopher, although being free from some of the above
defects, it is a more agreeable print. The subject did not require
the introduction of naked limbs, which the best painters of those
times were but ill qualified to design; whereas it allowed fuller scope
to the artist's abilities in casting drapery,—a part of the art with the
principles of which even the most inferior designers of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries were not unacquainted. Both these prints
were, I think, originally printed on the same paper; which was
probably intended to be folded, and inserted in that state in a book
of devotion; when, as was the case with the ancient Dyptici, and
many of the small portable altar-pictures of those times, the two
subjects would have faced each other. They are of the same
height, and very nearly of an equal breadth ; are printed upon
a paper rather thick than otherwise, with black oil-colour, or what
is commonly termed printing-ink, and are tinted, (apparently at the
time), with precisely the same colours.
It is further remarkable, that these prints shew no signs of having
been taken off', like the St. Bridget, by means of friction, but were
evidently printed with a press.
In this respect, and in the black ink with which they are printed,
they differ from all the very early wood-prints of Germany, or the
Netherlands, that I am acquainted with; these latter (I speak
more especially of the ancient block-books) being taken off with a
brownish tint, apparently in distemper, by means of friction.
n 2
91
prepared the design from which the print was immediately en-
graved, had no part in the invention of the piece ; except that of
introducing the fish under the feet of the saint, the diminutive mill
in the fore-ground, and the other accessories; all of them so far
beneath criticism, that one would almost suppose it had been his
intention, by surrounding St. Christopher with such absurdities, to
bring the saint into disrepute.
Within the other cover of the same manuscript, another wood-
print is pasted, representing " The Annunciation of the Virgin."
It is undoubtedly the production of the same artist who engraved
the St. Christopher, although being free from some of the above
defects, it is a more agreeable print. The subject did not require
the introduction of naked limbs, which the best painters of those
times were but ill qualified to design; whereas it allowed fuller scope
to the artist's abilities in casting drapery,—a part of the art with the
principles of which even the most inferior designers of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries were not unacquainted. Both these prints
were, I think, originally printed on the same paper; which was
probably intended to be folded, and inserted in that state in a book
of devotion; when, as was the case with the ancient Dyptici, and
many of the small portable altar-pictures of those times, the two
subjects would have faced each other. They are of the same
height, and very nearly of an equal breadth ; are printed upon
a paper rather thick than otherwise, with black oil-colour, or what
is commonly termed printing-ink, and are tinted, (apparently at the
time), with precisely the same colours.
It is further remarkable, that these prints shew no signs of having
been taken off', like the St. Bridget, by means of friction, but were
evidently printed with a press.
In this respect, and in the black ink with which they are printed,
they differ from all the very early wood-prints of Germany, or the
Netherlands, that I am acquainted with; these latter (I speak
more especially of the ancient block-books) being taken off with a
brownish tint, apparently in distemper, by means of friction.
n 2