Stijnman is more cau tious about accepting visual evidence for printing practices, such as images of workshops and equipment. We are told firmly that 'This is proved different in intaglio printmaking', historical references, marks of provenance and signs of use found in surviving copies 'testify to the presence of technical manuals in engravers' studios from the seventeenth century up to the present day' (p. It is often said that Joseph Moxon's Mechanick Exercises (1685) and other letter press printers' manuals are idiosyncratic and cannot be relied on as guides to normal workshop practice. These chapters are preceded by two shorter chapters, the first on the pre-history and early history of etching and engraving, the second on 'The Trade of Intaglio Printmaking', dealing with the economics and organization of the trade. The manuals provide data for the two main chapters of the book, one on making the plates, the other on printing them. Central to the book is an annotated bibliography of these works. This major work is based on an exhaustive study of practical manuals of intaglio plate-making and printing published in European languages from 1546 to 1979. The early engravers were artist-printmakers, but from the end of the fifteenth century increasing specialization separated draughtsmen, printmakers and printers mechanization and photography brought an end to commercial engraving and the manual printmaking processes were once again in the hands of artist-printmakers doing their own printing. The scope of the book and its dual audience of historians on the one hand and practicing artists on the other, is predicated on the overarching history of printmaking. As a practicing artist and printmaker, he is able to give informed accounts of the processes involved and intends his book 'to guide art historians, art lovers and artists through the workshops of engravers and printers of the past, and of printmakers of the present' (p. Art historians, Stijnman argues, generally have little hands-on experience of printmaking, while printmakers are not well informed about the history of their craft. This is the history of printing, not the history of prints. Now for the first time Ad Stijnman has given us a major study in which the focus is the making of prints. With the same intent, we have a number of excellent brief guides to printmaking processes. Hind's standard A History of Engraving and Etching from the 15th Century to the Year 1914 (3rd edition, 1923), the technical information is given 'in just sufficient detail to enable the student of the history of engraving to obtain a proper comprehension of cause and effect'. Histories of prints often begin with an outline of printmaking processes.
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