Library of the Written Word – The Handpress World 41
ISBN: 9789004269682; E-ISBN 9789004290112
Coinciding exhibition: German Renaissance Colour Prints (British Museum); Buy now

Contributors: Nancy Ash, Lucia Burgio, Alexander Dencher, Haddon A. Dine, Anja Grebe, Jo-Fan Huang, Mayumi Ikeda, Alice Klein, Elmer Kolfin, Shelley Langdale, Marjolein Leesberg, Jun Nakamura, Doris Oltrogge, Beth A. Price, Marrigje Rikken, Kathryn M. Rudy, Elizabeth Savage, Linda Stiber Morenus, Ad Stijnman, Keith Sutherland, Naoko Takahatake, Simon Turner, Andreas Uhr, Edward H. Wouk

In Printing Colour 1400–1700, Ad Stijnman and Elizabeth Savage offer the first handbook of early modern colour printing techniques before 1700 (when most such histories begin), creating a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for the history of graphic art. It unveils a corpus of thousands of individual colour prints from across early modern Europe, proposing art historical, bibliographical, technical and scientific contexts for understanding them and their markets. 

The twenty-three contributions represent the state of research in this still-emerging field. From the first known attempts in the West until the invention of the approach we still use today (blue-red-yellow-black/‘key’, now CMYK), it demonstrates that colour prints were not rare outliers, but essential components of many early modern book, print and visual cultures. 

Readership: All interested in late medieval/renaissance art, graphic art, the history of the book, bibliography, the cultural history of colour, the development of Art History and Bibliography, and conserving works on paper.