Printing Colour 1400 - 1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions

In Printing Colour 1400-1700, Ad Stijnman and Elizabeth Savage offer the first handbook of early modern colour printmaking before 1700 (when most such histories begin), creating a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for the history of graphic art. It unveils a corpus of thousands of individual colour prints from across early modern Europe, proposing art historical, bibliographical, technical and scientific contexts for understanding them and their markets.

The twenty-three contributions represent the state of research in this still-emerging field. From the first known attempts in the West until the invention of the approach we still use today (blue-red-yellow-black/’key’, now CMYK), it demonstrates that colour prints were not rare outliers, but essential components of many early modern book, print and visual cultures.

Ad Stijnman PhD (Amsterdam) FRHistS, is a researcher on historical printmaking materials and processes at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. He has published monographs and numerous articles on the practical aspects of historical printing and printmaking techniques, including Engraving and Etching 1400-2000 (Archetype 2012).

Elizabeth Savage PhD (Cambridge), is a 2015-18 British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at The John Rylands Research Institute, University of Manchester. Her research into early modern colour printing techniques has won two international awards and been published in leading journals.