Colour-Printed Pasteprints, 1460S–1480S
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chapter 6 Colour-Printed Pasteprints, 1460s–1480s Andreas Uhr So-called ‘pasteprints’, which were made from the 1460s to involve the production of multiple two-dimensional repli- the 1520s, are among the most fascinating creations of cations of a matrix with an oil-based or water-based ink on early graphic art.1 Up to 300 genuine specimens have come a flat support (usually paper, more rarely fabric or parch- to light,2 but their method of production has not yet been ment) in a printing press or by a manual process, but paste- fully understood.3 Printing is conventionally understood to prints are generally three-dimensional objects that were ‘printed’ from a matrix in relief with a material that has Translated by Freya Buechter-Greiner. been called ‘paste’ (for lack of a better term) from its first 1 Cf. W.L. Schreiber, Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des xv. description in 1860.4 Other than being resin-based, its Jahrhunderts […], 8 vols. (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1926–1930), vi, which composition varied greatly and did not follow a specific is still considered the most authoritative catalogue, and the adden- recipe.5 dum following the entry on pasteprints in Schreiber, Handbuch, viii: The number of publications concerning pasteprints 145–47, 158. Schreiber identified 203 specimens of 178 visually distin- remains sparse due to the objects’ poor state of preserva- guishable pasteprints, almost all surviving in a unique impression. In tion (their surfaces are often crumbled, leading to signifi- this paper, they are referred to in the format ‘Schr. no.’, and supple- cant material losses),6 and, as earlier authors complained, mentary entries as ‘Schr. vol. no.’ Scholars occasionally refer to an unpublished second supplement as the ninth volume, cf. the preface the near-impossibility of reproducing their colours and sur- to T.O. Mabbott, ‘Relief Prints in American Private and Public face texture accurately until very recently.7 Among the Collections in New York, Cambridge, Cincinnati, Kansas City’, in very few illustrations not in black-and-white were the very Einblattdrucke des xv Jahrhunderts (Strasbourg: Heitz, 1940), 99. According to Erwin Kistner, Mabbott was in charge of planning it; E. Kistner, ‘Studien an Teigdrucken aus dem Besitz des Germanischen Nationalmuseums in Nürnberg’, in Festschrift Eugen Schollreither zum in the Visual Arts Symposium Papers 52, ed. P.W. Parshall 75. Geburtstag gewidmet von Fachgenossen, Schüler, Freunden, ed. F. (Washington, d.c.: National Gallery of Art; New Haven, London: Yale Redenbacher (Erlangen: Universitätsbibliothek, 1950), 65–97, 86. University Press, 2009), 317–36; S. Bertalan, ‘Medieval Pasteprints in 2 This figure includes poorly preserved exemplars, some of which the National Gallery of Art’, in Conservation Research 1993: Six Essays were omitted by or unknown to Schreiber; Schreiber, Handbuch, 6: on Conservation Techniques, Practices, and Research, ed. R.M. Merrill 3, footnote. Since the publication of his pivotal sixth volume, hardly (Washington, d.c.: National Gallery of Art, 1993), 31–61; E. Coombs any well-preserved pasteprints have been discovered. See also P. and E. Farrell, ‘Pasteprints: A Technical Investigation of Some Heitz, Einblattdrucke des xv. Jahrhunderts, ed. T.O. Mabbott Fifteenth-Century Composite Prints’, in Pasteprints: A Technical and (Strasbourg: Heitz, after 1932), vols. 78, 95, 97, 99. Some pasteprints Art Historical Investigation, ed. E. Coombs and E. Farrell, R.S. Field that were rediscovered at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, (Cambridge, Mass., Office of the University Publisher, 1986), 1–26. Nuremberg, in June 1947 were described in detail in 1950 in Kistner, 4 The term ‘empreintes en pâte’ was first used in J.D. Passavant, Le Teigdrucken, 65–97. Christian von Heusinger elaborated on Peintre-Graveur, 6 vols. (Leipzig: Weigel, 1860–64) 1: 102–106. Kistner’s findings in ‘Ein unbeschriebener Teigdruck in der 5 On recipes, see D. Oltrogge, ‘Colour Stamping’, this volume, 51–64. Zentralbibliothek Zürich’, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie 6 For an overview of research history, see R.S. Field, ‘The Study of und Kunstgeschichte, 15 (1954/1955) 4: 239–43. Some pasteprints Pasteprints, 1854–1986’, in Coombs, Farrell and Field, Pasteprints, recently found at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, are 27–46; it is the basis for ‘Zur Technik des Teigdrucks – neueste natur- in excellent condition; A. Uhr, ‘Graphische Raritäten: Teigdrucke in wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen’, in I. Fleischmann, Metallschnitt Büchern aus niedersächsischen Frauenklöstern, heute in der und Teigdruck: Technik und Entstehung zur Zeit des frühen Buchdrucks Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel’, in Rosenkränze und (Mainz am Rhein: Von Zabern, 1998), 27–49. Seelengärten: Bildung und Frömmigkeit in niedersächsischen 7 Franz Martin Haberditzl, for instance, excluded from his list paste- Frauenklöstern, ed. B.-J. Kruse, exh. cat. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz prints that were part of the print collection at the court library in 1920 in Kommission, 2013), 63–70; images are available at http://www. and are now preserved in the Albertina, Vienna, ‘because their repro- virtuelles-kupferstichkabinett.de (search ‘Teigdruck’). duction by collotype yields unserviceable results’; F.M. Haberditzl, 3 Analyses have provided disparate results; A. Scheld and R. Damm, Die Einblattdrucke des xv. Jahrhunderts in der Kupferstichsammlung ‘Flock Prints and Paste Prints: A Technological Approach’, in The der Hofbibliothek zu Wien, Vol. I: Die Holzschnitte (Vienna: Verlag der Woodcut in Fifteenth-century Europe, Center for Advanced Study Gesellschaft für vervielfältigende Kunst, 1920), 3. Colour-Printed Pasteprints, 1460s–1480s 77 expensive colour reproductions in Georg Leidinger’s 1908 account that colour was a design element of several paste- study of the numerous pasteprints in manuscripts of the prints in his description of the substrates, and he men- Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.8 Hence little heed tioned that several colours had been added at the end of could be paid to pasteprints’ colouration or production. the production process.13 Nevertheless, attempts at explaining the method were at Vagaries of terminology make it unclear whether paste- the heart of research from the very beginning.9 They were prints can be considered colour prints. If one proceeds from mainly limited to embossed exemplars made with black the assumption that a printed image is simply a design that printers’ ink, which is found in almost all but a very few sur- can be produced in multiples from a matrix, not necessarily viving specimens, excluding the special case of ‘flock prints’ involving a printing press, and that a colour print involves with purple-dyed wool dust applied to red-coloured paste.10 any colour of a material (not necessarily printing ink) This paper will discuss these colourful exceptions and other excepting black in monochrome, then many would meet exemplars that involve an approach to colour printmaking the requirements. If a ‘print’ must be produced with a print- or that previous studies have considered as colour prints. ing press and a ‘colour print’ must involve the application of Thomas Ollive Mabbott, who in 1932 undertook a sys- printing ink, and in more than one colour, they would not. tematic classification based on pasteprints that had been Since the prepared paste substrates into which the image is listed by Schreiber,11 initially viewed the colourful appear- pressed by an embossing plate also have a coloured surface ance of the objects he presented as of secondary signifi- that interacts visually with the ink in the unprinted areas,14 cance. He classified the sheets identified as pasteprints it is not enough to concentrate on the colour of the ink. The according to their techniques of production, focussing on relief effect of pasteprints was only made possible through their external appearance.12 Nevertheless, he took into their substrates, which both lent the picture radiance after the embossing plate was removed and enhanced the three- 8 G. Leidinger, Die Teigdrucke des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts in der dimensional effect. In any case, it is clear that these coloured k. Hof- und Staatsbibliothek München (München: Callwey, 1908). substrates are a constitutive element of every pasteprint: the These illustrations were reproduced from up to four printing choice of substrate shaped the appearance of each impres- plates per image in order to convey the colours. sion. Additionally, and like traditional fifteenth-century 9 Even the first description of a pasteprint contains a suggestion as relief and intaglio prints, the finished sheets were usually how it was produced: L. Bechstein, ‘Unica et Nondescripta: partially coloured by brush after embossing. As the last step Mitteilungen’, Deutsches Kunstblatt: Zeitung für bildende Kunst und in the production of relief and intaglio prints, brushing Baukunst. Organ der deutschen Kunstvereine, 1 (1850) 17: 131–32. with water-colour or washing them with ink not only added 10 Very few are known; Schreiber, Handbuch, 6 and 8: nos. 2789.x, 2833, 2833.x, 2844, 2862.m. In reference to Schr. 2833, Scheld and the final touch but also disguised flaws from the printing Damm established that the glue was not that used in other flock process. Flock prints, again, are exceptional; only one, St prints: ‘[i]n Saint Barbara, the binding medium for the flock was Barbara (Schr. 2833), now in Würzburg, was coloured.15 In it, of a greyish-brown colour with a pastelike consistency’; Scheld the host appears above the once golden yellow chalice, and Damm, Flock Prints, 321. For a further explanation of this symbolizing the Eucharist and the Christian faith that the printing technique, cf. Scheld and Damm, Flock Prints, 318–22; G. saint refused to abjure, and its thin silver-coloured coating Leidinger, ‘Ein Samt-Teigdruck des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts’, sets it off from the surrounding red-violet surface. Archiv für Buchgewerbe und Gebrauchsgraphik, 64 (1927) 3: 213– 22. See also D. Oltrogge, ‘Colour Stamping’, this volume, 53, 60. 11 T.O. Mabbott, ‘Pasteprints and Sealprints’, Metropolitan Museum 13 Cf. in particular those statements concerning the category ‘iv.