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Distributed for Paul Holberton Publishing

Early Colour Printing

German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum

This illustrated volume reproduces and describes effectively every early modern German color print held at the British Museum, one of the world’s most significant collections of these rare milestones of cultural heritage and technology. New photography reveals 150 impressions in jaw-dropping detail, some of which have never been seen in public or reproduced. 

From artworks to missals and icons to wallpapers, this book breaks new ground by revealing the fascinating underlying technologies that enabled the production of these color-printed objects. Further, the volume offers significant new scholarship, pinpointing attributions to printers—not just to artists or designers. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for a new understanding of the history of print, one that encompasses all forms of printed material. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this collection guide will be a standard reference on German graphic art, early modern visual culture, and the history of printing itself.

256 pages | 150 color plates | 8 1/2 x 10 1/4 | © 2020

Art: Art--General Studies, European Art


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Reviews

"Early Colour Printing will certainly appeal to professionals working within the history of the book, art history, or the history of early modern visual culture...Savage’s focus on color processes makes this work an excellent complement to the existing literature on print history. But even those who are not early modern or print specialists will find it valuable, as the combination of interesting subject material and engaging images make it a wonderful resource for anyone with an interest in art."

The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America

"With eighty-two entries richly illustrated in brilliant color and carefully described, Savage’s guide to early modern German color prints held at the British Museum is a resource to which scholars and nonspecialists alike will repeatedly return for its high-quality reproductions, clarity of text, and expert insights."

Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies

"From works of art and missals to wallpaper, German printers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were colorfully creative marvels. Their work is explored in detail for the first time in Early Colour Printing. . . . It is as much about book history and bibliography as it is about art history, so offers a new context for understanding color-printed book illustrations and title pages in readers' collections."

Fine Books & Collections

"This beautifully accessible, exhibition-style catalogue marks Elizabeth Savage's latest installment in her reinvention of early modern color printing history. Gorgeously produced and illustrated in full-page color with numerous detailed views, it persuasively argues for a more inclusive narrative of pre-1600 Germanic color woodcuts."

Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture

"With its contextualizing approach, this lucid study provides a detailed understanding of . . .sixteenth-century colour woodcut printing."

Burlington Magazine

"Early Colour Printing analyzes at considerable depth the technical aspects of this important group of early woodcuts and justly stresses the fundamental contribution of their highly-skilled block cutters."

Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance

"While Savage’s book is both comprehensive and scholarly, its clear prose also speaks to a general public....rigorous yet accessible, her book focuses on objects but with a sense of the overall contexts and developments. This study readily serves as both a reference work and a survey introduction for German colored woodcut prints of the long sixteenth century."

Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews

"The design, printing and choice of paper of the catalogue...are to be praised."

Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte

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