A Brief History of Wood-engraving From Its InventionCundall, Joseph
History
A Brief History of Wood-engraving From Its Invention
Cundall, Joseph
Wood-engraving -- History
{4} Outside the palings a rabbit is feeding; a bird sits on the rail behind
St. Catherine, two others are flying, and, above all, three angels are
offering chaplets of roses to the Virgin; a palm-tree is growing on each
side of her. But the most important part of the print is the very solid
three-barred gate at the entrance to the garden, for on the uppermost of
the bars we distinctly read m: cccc^o xviii^o. The print itself measures
14½ inches in height by 9 inches in width, without reckoning the border
lines. It was found pasted at the bottom of an old coffer in the possession
of an innkeeper at Malines in 1844 by a well-known architect, M. de Noter,
who, recognising its great importance, offered it to the Royal Library at
Brussels. It has been reproduced in scrupulously exact facsimile and fully
described in the work entitled 'Documents iconographiques et typographiques
de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique,' published by MM. Muquardt of
Brussels. The small letters ^o are supposed to represent nails in the gate.
M. Georges Duplessis tells us that he has examined the print minutely
several times, and that he does not believe this date has been tampered
with in any way. Some collectors and would-be critics maintain that the
drawing of the figures and the folds of the garments are of a later date
than 1418; if they were to examine the works of Hubert and Jan van Eyck,
and the paintings of Meister Stephan Lochner of Cologne, Rogier van der
Weyden, and other artists who lived about this time, they would be
sufficiently answered. Mr. Linton is of opinion (and there can be no better
judge) that the _style_ of the engraving does not compel him to attribute
it to a later date than 1418, yet both he and Mr. Chatto express their
doubts as to its authenticity--it appears to us, without sufficient reason.
About the middle of the eighteenth century Herr Heinecken, a German
collector of engravings, discovered, pasted {5} inside the binding of a
manuscript in the library of the convent of Buxheim in Suabia, a folio
print brightly coloured of _St. Christopher bearing the Infant Christ_.
The outlines are printed in black ink, not by any kind of press, but in
much the same way as that used by wood-engravers of the present day in
taking their proofs, who first ink the engraved surface with a printer's
ball, then lay the paper carefully over the cut, waxed at the edges to hold
the paper firmly, and rub the back of the paper with a burnisher. In the
fifteenth century a roller called a _frotton_ was used, as being more
expeditious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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