_IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES IN GERMANY, ITALY AND
ENGLAND_
In the portfolios of collectors of works of art of the sixteenth century we
frequently meet with very interesting examples of printing in
_chiaro-oscuro_, as it was called, by means of successive impressions of
engraved wood-blocks. Sometimes two or three blocks were used, sometimes
six or eight, in all cases with the intention of reproducing the appearance
of a tinted water-colour drawing or an oil-painting. Those prints which
were the least ambitious were the most successful, They were generally
printed in various shades of grey and brown--from light sepia to deep
umber--and sometimes the effects are admirable. A well-known designer and
engraver on wood, Ugo da Carpi (c. 1520), introduced this new style of
printing into Venice, and other artists, Antonio da Trento, Andrea
Andreani, Bartolomeo Coriolano, and others made many successful efforts in
a similar direction; their best works are much prized.
At the same time a group of Venetian artists, who were also engravers on
wood, distinguished themselves by copying the works of Titian and other
Italian painters. The most celebrated of these engravers were Nicolo
Boldrini, Francesco da Nanto, Giovanni Battista del Porto, and Giuseppe
Scolari, who all flourished between the years 1530 and 1580. Their {100}
productions, which are on a large scale, are greatly valued by artists.
Near the end of the century a book of costume entitled _Habiti Antichi e
Moderni di tutto il Mondo_ was designed and published at Venice by Cesare
Vecellio, who is said to have been a nephew of the great Titian. This work
contains nearly six hundred figures in the costume of every age and
country, admirably drawn and engraved; indeed, they are the best examples
of the art of wood-engraving in Italy at the time. This excellent work was
reproduced in their well-known style by Messrs. Firmin, Didot & Cie in two
volumes (Paris, 1860).
An edition of 'Dante' published by the brothers Sessa at Venice in 1578 is
well illustrated with good woodcuts.
German artists were also bitten at this time with a mania for reproducing
pictures by means of colour blocks. The results, however, were much more
curious than beautiful. We have before us a copy of a painting designed by
Altdorfer, one of the 'Little Masters,' of 'The Virgin with the Holy Infant
on her Lap,' set in an elaborate architectural frame. In this print at
least eight different colour-blocks were used, among them a deep red and a
vivid green. The printer's register has been fairly well kept, and the
mechanical part of the work is worthy of all praise; but we fear the effect
on most of our readers would be to produce anything but admiration. A Saint
Christopher, designed and probably engraved by Lucas Cranach, printed in
black and deep umber, only with the high lights carefully cut out of the
latter block, is much more satisfactory.
In the middle and towards the end of the sixteenth century there were
several excellent wood-engravings published in London in illustration of
Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs' (1562), Holinshed's 'Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland' (1577), 'A Booke of Christian Prayers' (1569), and
other works, chiefly from the press of the celebrated John Daye. {101}
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JOHN DAYE, THE CELEBRATED PRINTER OF FOXE'S
'BOOK OF MARTYRS,' A.D. 1562]
{102} As an example we give one of the illustrations of Holinshed's
Chronicles as a frontispiece. There can be no doubt that Holbein designed
it; the ornamentation alone would almost prove it to be from his hand. The
title-page of the 'Bishops' Bible,' printed about the same time, has a
finely engraved border, representing the King handing the volume to the
Bishops, who in turn present it to the people. There are many woodcuts in
the text, but they are of very low merit.
We give an illustration of 'A Booke of Christian Prayers,' known as Queen
Elizabeth's Prayer-book, from a fine portrait of Her Majesty kneeling on a
handsome cushion, with clasped hands before a kind of altar. The Queen's
dress is magnificent, and the ornamentation of the whole design is of a
similar character. It is an excellent piece of engraving, and we are able
to give a facsimile of it, cut about sixty years ago by George Bonner. Mr.
Linton thinks the original was on metal; who engraved it is at present
unknown. We fear there was no one in England who could produce such work,
nor can anyone tell who made the design. It is printed on the back of the
title-page, which is decorated with a border of a 'Jesse-tree,' with a
figure of Jesse at the foot and the Virgin with the Holy Infant on her lap
at the head. There are woodcut borders to each of the 274 pages, all
betraying German origin, and evidently by different hands. A few floral
designs and single figures of 'Temperance,' 'Charity,' and the like are the
best. Among the rest is a series of 'Dance of Death' pictures, but _not_ by
Holbein. Another edition of this work was printed in 1590 at London, 'By
Richard Yardley and Peter Short for the assignes of Richard Day dwelling in
Bred-street hill at the signe of the Starre.' [Doubtless this was on the
site of the present printing office of Richard Clay & Sons.] Richard Day
was a son of John Day or Daye, as we often find the name printed.
{103}
[Illustration: ELIZABETHA REGINA
(_From 'A Booke of Christian Prayers.' Printed by John Daye, London,
1569._)]
{104} Another illustrated book, 'The Cosmographical Glasse, conteinyng the
pleasant Principles of Cosmographie, Geographie, Hydrographie or
Navigation. Compiled by William Cuningham, Doctor in Physicke' (of
Norwich), was printed by John Day in 1559, with many cuts. In the
ornamental title-page there is a large bird's-eye view of the city of
Norwich, with a mark of the engraver, I. B. There is also a large and
well-engraved portrait of the author, 'ætatis 28,' a rather sad-looking
young man; and many initial letters, some of which have a small I. D. at
the foot, which probably tell us that John Day himself engraved them.
Others have a small I inside a larger C, and this monogram appears
frequently on the small cuts in the border of Queen Elizabeth's Book of
Prayers. John Day tells us in a work published in 1567 that the Saxon type
in which it is printed was _cut_ by himself.
John Day was a great friend of John Foxe, and assisted him in producing his
celebrated 'Acts and Monuments of the Church,' generally known as his
'Booke of Martyrs.' In the 'Acts and Monuments,' printed in 1576, there is
a large initial C, evidently drawn and engraved by the artists who produced
the Queen's portrait. In this initial, Elizabetha Regina is seen seated in
state, with her feet resting on the same cushion that appears in the larger
print, attended by three of her Privy Councillors standing at her right
hand. A figure of the Pope with two _broken_ keys in his hands forms part
of the decoration of the base; an immense cornucopia reaches over the top.
Early in the seventeenth century we meet with the name of an excellent
wood-engraver at Antwerp, Christoph Jegher, who worked for many years with
Peter Paul Rubens, and produced many large woodcuts. We are enabled to give
a much-reduced copy of a 'Flight into Egypt,' which in the original is
nearly twenty-four inches in length. Underneath appears the inscription,
_P. P. Rub. delin. & excud._, from which we learn that Rubens himself
superintended the {105} printing, for _C. Jegher sculp._ appears on the
other side. Some of this series of cuts were printed with a tint of sepia
over them in imitation of the Italian chiaro-oscuro prints of the previous
century. Christoph Jegher was born in Germany in 1590 (?) and died at
Antwerp in 1670. He lived through many tempestuous years and did much good
work. A contemporary wood-engraver named Cornelius van Sichem, living at
Amsterdam, produced a few excellent cuts from drawings by Heinrich Goltzius
(d. 1617), who copied the Italian school.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. BY RUBENS
_Reduced copy of the engraving by C. Jegher_]
At the end of the seventeenth century the art of wood-engraving reached its
lowest ebb. There were a few tolerably good mechanical engravers on the
Continent, who were {106} chiefly employed in the manufacture of ornaments
for cards, and head and tail pieces for books and ballads, but nearly all
the woodcuts we meet with in English books are of the most childish
character. The rage for copper-plate engravings had set in with so much
vigour among all the printers and publishers that the poor wood-engraver
was well-nigh forgotten.
In London a new edition of 'Æsop's Fables,' edited by Dr. Samuel Croxall,
and illustrated with many woodcuts much better engraved than was customary
at the time, was published by Jacob Tonson at the Shakespear's Head, in the
Strand, in 1722. We do not learn the names of the artists. In 1724 Elisha
Kirkall engraved and published seventeen Views of Shipping, from designs by
W. Vandevelde, which he printed in a greenish kind of ink; and in a
portfolio full of woodcuts in the Print Room of the British Museum Mr. W.
J. Linton recently discovered a large Card of Invitation (query--to a
wedding?) from Mr. Elisha and _Mrs._ Elizabeth Kirkall, dated '_August_ the
31st, 1709. Printed at His Majesty's Printing Office in _Blackfryers_,'
which is very firmly and boldly engraved, probably in soft metal. On the
left of the Royal Arms, Fame, blowing a trumpet, holds up a circular
medallion portrait of Guttenburgh (we follow the spelling); a similar
figure on the right holds the portrait of W. Caxton and a scroll; at the
foot, in the middle, is a view of London Bridge over the Thames, with the
Monument and St. Paul's Cathedral, and on either side is a Cupid--one with
a torch and a dove, with masonic emblems at his feet, the other with
attributes of painting, sculpture, and music. The Cupids are very like the
fat-faced little cherubim we so constantly meet with on seventeenth-century
monuments, though Mr. Linton has nothing but praise to give to the
engraving, which he says is the first example of the use of the 'white
line' in English work.
In Paris there was a family of three generations of {107} engravers named
Papillon, who illustrated hundreds of books with small and very fine cuts,
in evident imitation of the copper-plates then so much in vogue. Jean
Michel Papillon, the youngest of them, published a _Traité Historique et
Pratique de la Gravure en Bois_, in two volumes with a supplement, which,
though full of credulous errors, has been of inestimable service to all
writers on the history of wood-engraving. This Papillon was probably in
England at one time, for he received a prize from the Society of Arts. He
was born in the year 1698, began to engrave blocks when only eight years
old, and lived till the year 1776.
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