The print before photography : an introduction to European printmaking, 1550-1820 / Antony Griffiths.

London : The British Museum Press, 2016.

560 pages : illustrations (some colour), maps (some colour), facsimiles (some colour) ; 30 cm

Machine generated contents note: 1. The European print 1550 -- 1820 -- pt. I PRINT PRODUCTION -- 2. The technology and its implications -- Copper plates -- Paper -- Other supplies: etching grounds, acid, burins -- Transferring designs -- Reversal -- The process of engraving and etching Jo Working proofs and̀ touching' -- Lettering -- Proof slates made for sale Rolling presses -- Priming -- Printers -- Woodcut -- The time required to produce plates in the intaglio techniques -- 3. The printing capacity of copper plates -- The printing capacity of engraved plates -- The printing capacity of etched plates -- The printing capacity of mezzotint and drypoint -- The priming capacity or stipple and oilier processes -- The mass-market trade -- Woodcut -- Contemporary views about retouching and reworking -- 4. The costs and profitability of new print production -- Costs of woodcut -- Costs of engraving -- Fixed costs (copper, engraving, lettering, designs) -- Variable costs (paper, ink and printing) -- Some representative costings -- Break even points and profitability in engraving -- Profitability of other intaglio processes -- Delays in production -- How long was a print run? -- Economics in printing -- 5. Lettering, language and text -- Lettering styles -- Languages -- Terms relating to the printmaker and designer -- Terms relating to the publisher -- Privileges, publication lines and dedications -- Verses on prints -- Texts on prints and the interpretation of paintings -- Titles -- Absent loitering -- Incomplete lettering -- Inaccurate and misleading lettering -- Text added after publication -- 6. The print and the state: censorship, copyright, privileges, taxation and promotion -- Censorship and prosecutions for publishing prints -- Licences to publish prints -- Copyright -- Privileges -- Multiple privileges -- Procedures and types of privilege -- Notes oil privileges by country -- Taxation -- Court engravers -- Slate mercantilism -- 7. Copying prints -- The extent of copying -- The methods and costs of copying -- Unlawful copying -- Copying within the law -- Replicas -- Authorized or permitted copies -- Pastiches -- Drawn copies -- Harmless copying -- The swipe -- Copying as an industry -- 8. Reprinting plates and blocks -- The value and reuse of plates -- The survival of plates and blocks -- Altering plates and blocks -- The profitability of reprinting -- The trade in second-hand plates -- The scale and length of reprinting -- Plates and collectors -- 9. Colouring prints -- Attitudes to colouring -- Methods of colouring -- The colouring trade and its levels -- Publishers' colouring -- Retailers' colouring -- Some special cases -- Bespoke colouring -- Colouring to match the original -- Outline etchings for colouring -- Other types of colouring and decorating prints -- Primed colour -- The printed painting -- Colour values in black and white -- 10. Single sheets, pairs, sets and oeuvres -- Single sheets: sizes and formats -- Pairs for framing -- Sets, series, suites: some general remarks -- The Netherlandish development of the set -- Extending and altering series -- Retrospectivè false' series -- Books of prints -- The recueil (the collected edition) -- The oeuvre -- 11. Book illustration -- Combining illustrations with text -- Frontispieces, title-plates and authors' portraits -- Producing a set of book illustrations -- Covering The costs of illustrated editions -- Ways of further exploiting a set of plates -- The involvement of authors in financing plates -- The importance of book illustration for the print trade -- Bibliophiles and Collectors -- 12. The survival and loss of prints -- Collectors' prints -- The law of print survival -- The problem of the quantification of losses -- Literary evidence for losses -- Lost types of prints -- Surviving prints with unfamiliar and Forgotten functions -- Prints intended for pairing -- Cut-Outs (decoupage) -- pt. II THE EUROPEAN PRINT TRADE -- 13. The European print trade 1550 -- 1820 -- 14. The participants in the print trade -- 15. The printmaker -- Apprenticeships and training in drawing -- Specialist and general engravers -- Employees and subcontractors -- Advancing a career: travel and further training -- Working independently on commission -- Publishing on one's own account -- Selling -- Further Options -- Jean Daulle -- 16. The painter and designer -- The legal and moral background -- The artist's interest in prints of his work -- Artists' supply of designs for the print trade -- Collaborations between painters and engravers -- The painter as publisher -- The painter as printmaker -- The painter's etching -- Printmaking and history painting -- The auctor intellectualis -- Constable on print publishing -- 17. The publisher: finance and production -- Publishers who emerged from the print trade -- Establishing a business as a print publisher eye Backers -- The large-scale publishing dynasties -- Partnerships and corporate publishing -- Publishers who remained anonymous -- Strategy and specialization -- Publishers as individuals: the variety of background and approach -- 18. The publisher: distribution -- Direct sale by the printmaker or painter -- Wholesale distribution at fairs -- Exchanging stock -- The correspondent -- Terms of trade -- Discounts and length of credit -- Accounting and payments -- Importers and exporters -- Publishing for distribution in another country -- Packing prints -- Shipping prints -- The reach of the European print trade -- 19. Patronage and subsidized publication -- Patronage and subsidy -- Dedications -- Rewards for dedication -- Presentations -- Specialist and scientific publications -- Sponsored illustrations in books -- Gallery' and collection series -- Fund-raising and charity plates -- 20. Non-commercial State and private publication -- State-sponsored publications -- State control of publications -- Festival books and prints -- Private plates -- Thesis prints -- Amateur printmakers -- 21. The printseller -- The great print sellers -- Lesser printsellers -- Other shops that sold prints -- Selling from Stalls -- The print shop and its development -- Changes in demand in the later eighteenth century -- The antiquarian trade -- Restorers and mounters -- Auctions -- Selling antiquarian stock by catalogue -- 22. Marketing, advertising and subscriptions -- Catalogues and stock lists -- Promotional fliers and other ephemera -- Newspaper advertising -- Announcements and reviews -- Selling prints by Subscription -- Exhibitions -- 23. The buyer -- Buyers and their prints -- Prices and affordability -- The relationship of new to antiquarian prints -- Shopping for prints -- Speculation -- Looking al and enjoying prints -- 24. Cheap prints and the itinerant trade -- The country pedlar -- The urban street seller -- The publishers of cheap prints -- Woodcut or engraving? -- The range of the middle and lower market -- Thè popular' print and international subject-matter -- The cheap print as big business -- pt. III THE USE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE PRINT -- 25. The variety of the print -- Some contemporary views on the utility of the print -- Three examples of the variety of prints within a single class -- Prints as historical evidence -- 26. The display and storage of prints -- Multiple-sheet prints -- Prints pasted on walls -- Domestic display and framing of single-sheet prints -- Glazing prints -- Styles of framing in the eighteenth century -- Storing prints -- Albums -- Portfolios -- Mounts -- 27. Print collecting -- Prim buyers and print collectors -- The world of the print collector -- Connoisseurship -- First impressions ̀(premieres epreuves') -- Rarity -- Fakery -- Some common types of print collecting -- The complexity of print collecting -- The taxonomy of print collections -- The ideal print collection -- The history of print collecting -- 28. The knowledge and literature of prints -- The first publications on prints -- The beginnings of the print catalogue -- The position around 1700 -- The expert and unpublished knowledge -- The rise of the oeuvre catalogue -- The new wave of publications in the later eighteenth century -- The public collection and exhibition -- 29. The understanding and usage of the print in the art world -- Thè constprent': the print as art independent work of art -- Disegni a stampa' and the chiaroscuro woodcut -- The print as product of the artist's studio -- The rise of painting and the professional engraver -- The print as facsimile -- The print as translation -- The status of the engraver vis-a-vis the painter -- Prints as training material -- Prints as a crutch for the poor artist -- Prints and artistic originality -- 30. The hierarchy of the techniques of printmaking -- Burin engraving -- Mixed engraving and etching -- Miniaturist etching -- Etching for the trade -- The painter's etching -- Girard Audran and the etching of history -- The origin of the method of Bartsch -- Mezzotint -- Stipple and aquatint -- Woodcut -- Tail-piece -- Coda -- 31. The print since 1820 -- Steel plates -- Lithography -- Wood-engraving -- Photography -- The position of the hand-made processes -- The changed understanding of the hand-made print.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 501-545) and indexes.