Historical Print Shop - Printing and Graphic Arts

Printing and Graphic Arts
Subject Order

Johann Gutenberg
This print is from a 17th century painting of Gutenberg. Born in Mainz, Germany, Johann Gutenberg (Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg) (c.1398–1468) was a German metalworker and inventor who achieved fame for his contributions to the technology of printing during 1448, including a type metal alloy and oil-based inks, a mould for casting type accurately, and a new kind of printing press based on presses used in wine-making. Tradition credits him with inventing movable type in Europe – an improvement on the block printing already in use there. By combining these elements into a production system, he allowed for the rapid printing of written materials, and an information explosion in Renaissance Europe. In 1455, Gutenberg demonstrated the power of the printing press by selling copies of a two-volume Bible (Biblia Sacra) for 300 florins each. This was the equivalent of approximately three years' wages for an average clerk, but it was significantly cheaper than a handwritten Bible that could take a single monk 20 years to transcribe. Although Gutenberg was financially unsuccessful in his lifetime, his invention spread quickly, and news and books began to travel across Europe much faster than before. It fed the growing Renaissance, and since it greatly facilitated scientific publishing, it was a major catalyst for the later scientific revolution. The ability to produce many copies of a new book, and the appearance of Greek and Latin works in printed form was a major factor in the Reformation. Literacy also increased dramatically as a result. Gutenberg was subsidized by the Archbishop of Mainz until his death. Gutenberg was also known to spend what little money he had on alcohol, so the Archbishop arranged for him to be paid in food and lodging, instead of coin. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25605. $19.50

The Printing Shop of Johann Gutenberg
This print is from an engraving, dated 1580. Shown in this print is the printing shop of Johann Gutenberg (Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg) (c.1398–1468). The shop was located in Mainz, Germany. The basic sectors of the printing trades can be seen in this print, including: pre-press (type molding, typesetting), printing, paper drying, binding, and trimming. The printing trade was well established even before Gutenberg's time, using woodblock technology. A sheet of paper was placed on the inked woodblock and an impression taken by rubbing – a complex and time-consuming procedure. The printing press was a screw press, developed from the wine press, specially designed to achieve an effective and even transfer of the image to paper or even parchment – a quantum leap in speed and efficiency compared with the previous method of taking impressions by rubbing. Gutenberg's contribution to printing was the development of a punch and mold system which allowed the mass production of the movable type used to reproduce a page of text. These letters would be put together in a type tray which was then used to print a page of text. If a letter broke down, it could be replaced. When the printing of the copies of one page was finished, the type could be reused for the next page or the next book. Engraving by Johannes Stradanus (Jan van der Straet). Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25960. $19.50

Renaissance Book-Wheel
Keeping Several Books Open at One Time — A Precursor to Hypertext
This print is from an engraving, dated 1558. Born in Ponte Tresa, Italy, Agostino Ramelli was a pioneering engineer who designed the “reading-wheel” or “book-wheel”. His book, Le Diverse et Artificiose Machine (The Diverse and Artifactitious Machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli) (1588), urged the application of mathematics to mechanics and contained many illustrations and explanations of advanced designs for pumps, derricks, looms, cranes, foundry equipment, grinding mills, sawmills, bridges, fortifications, and engines for military uses including a possible forerunner to the Wankel engine. Ramelli's designs were very inventive and often required precise machining that was impossible in his day. Many were successfully manufactured and sold, two or three centuries later. Ramelli designed the "book-wheel" or “reading wheel” to present volumes of text to readers in whatever position they had last placed them. The “book-wheel,” an alternative version of the revolving bookstand, is a device designed to allow one person to read a variety of heavy books in one location with ease. The books are rotated vertically (as opposed to a flat, rotating table surface), much like a Ferris wheel. To ensure that the books remained at a constant angle, Ramelli incorporated an epicyclic gearing and counterbalanced arrangement, a complex device that had only previously been used in astronomical clocks. The device was made completely of wood. Ramelli undoubtedly understood that gravity could have worked just as effectively (as it does with a Ferris wheel), but the gearing system allowed him to display his mathematical prowess. As the device allowed the reader to keep several books open and read from them at the same time, in the view of some scientists, this was a precursor to the idea of hypertext, and hence the World Wide Web. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25965. $19.50

18th Century Printing Shop
This print is from an engraving, dated 1765. The printing shop in this print has two printing presses. On the left side of the print the jouneyman spreads out a sheet of paper, while his fellow worker inks the type. When the press is closed, it is slid under the “platen” or upper plate, which is pressed down by means of pressure from the large screw. The workman at the upper right is inking the ink balls and also checking each printed sheet for print quality and even inking as they emerges from the press. 100 years from the time this print was made printing had changed dramatically. By the end of the eighteenth century there were several remarkable innovations in printing techniques and their materials; Bewick developed the method of using engraving tools on the end of the wood, Senefelder discovered lithography,and Blake created relief etchings. Early in the nineteenth century Stanhope, George E. Clymer, Koenig and others introduced new kinds of printing presses, which for strength surpassed anything that had previously been known. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25966. $19.50

18th Century Printing Shop Composing Room
This print is from an engraving, dated 1765. Shown is the composing room of an 18th century printing shop. The typesetter (Figure 1) has the letters all arranged before him in the “compositors type case.” The “composing stick” is held in his left hand as he picks out the letters to set the text which he has before him in a reading stand. When a line of type is completed and justified, it is then placed in the “galley” (Figure 2), a long, narrow tray, from which an initial “galley proof” is then printed. After correction to the proof are made, the lines of type are made up into pages and the pages “imposed” or arranged so that when the paper is printed and folded, the sequence will be correct. Figure 3 shows two sheets in folio. These have been wedged and locked into the form so that the whole can be lifted and moved about as a solid piece. The worker taps the surface through a block of wood to even the face of the type and assure uniform printing. Print No. 25967. $19.50

18th Century Compositor's Type Case
(Type Distribution Box)
This print is from an engraving, dated 1765. Letterpress typesetting was done with wood or metal type. The compositor's type case (type distribution box) was a table-mounted tray that held the type, with compartments for each character of the font at a particular point size. It was usually tilted at about 45 degrees for easy access to its contents. The vowels and most widely used characters had larger compartments and the more obscure ones had smaller ones. Capital letters were at the top (back) of the tray and small letters at the bottom (front) of the tray — hence the terms “upper case” and “lower case” that we still use today. The typesetter learned the layout of the type case by touch, as a modern typist learns their keyboard. A good typesetter could set up 1,500 letters per hour. When a form was broken down and the type removed (“distribution”), a good typesetter could remove type and place them back into the type case at 5,000 letters per hour. Around 1430, as the new printing shop structure emerged, the art of type design left the composing room and became its own industry. Claude Garamond became the first punch cutter to work independently of printing firms. He established an independent type foundry to sell printers cast type ready to distribute into the compositor's case. This was a first step away from the scholar-publisher-typefounder-printer-bookseller, all-in-one enterprise that began 80 years earlier. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25969. $19.50

18th Century Typesetter’s Composing Stick
This print is from an engraving, dated 1765. In traditional typesetting and printing, a composing stick (also known as a job stick), was a device used to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines before they were locked into the chase (a cast-iron or steel frame into which type and hardwood or metal blocks in specific lengths and widths, were locked for printing). The stick was held in either the left hand or the right hand, depending on the operator's preference. The composing stick has one adjustable end allowing the length of the lines and consequent width of the page or column to be set. Early composing sticks were made of wood. Later composing sticks were made of metal. In this print, Figure 4 shows the letter “s”, a blank space (a), and “leads” of various thicknesses used to shim out or “justify” the line. Figure 5 shows a composing stick, with the phrase “Salut aux Armies” being set up. Figure 6 shows the completed phrase in the chase “Gloire à Dieu. Honneur au Roi. Salut aux Armies.” Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25968. $19.50

The Humanistic Letters of Geoffrey Tory
Applying Human Proportions to the Letterform
This print is from an engraving by Geoffrey Tory, dated 1529. Geoffrey Tory (1480–1533) was a pioneering French printer, wood engraver, designer, orthographer, publisher, author, and official printer to King Francis I. Born only 30 years after the invention of Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type printing press, Geoffrey Tory, together with Claude Garamond and Robert Granjon, was among the great printers of the French Renaissance. During the 15th and 16th Centuries, Geoffrey Tory, along with Aldus Manutius, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and others, explored the proportions of the human body in their work. In keeping with the proportional theories of Vitruvius, Tory attempted to apply mathematical principals to the art of lettering. Tory, much like Albrecht Durer, demonstrated the idea that absolute proportions of “Attic letters” (Roman letters) could be developed according to the proportions of the human body. In 1529 Tory published his great work “Champ Fleury”, subtitled “The Art and Science of the Proportion of the Attic or Ancient Roman Letters, According to the Human Body and Face” — the most famous example of the Renaissance pursuit of an ideal proportion between humanity and the letters in which its achievements were recorded. Typographers had long struggled with the problem of developing a formula for the design of capital Roman letters, a question Tory effectively addressed in his seminal work “Champ Fleury.” He advocated a number of other reforms, including the use of accents, the cedilla, the apostrophe, and other punctuation marks, that exerted a profound influence not only on orthography, but on language as it is written today. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25970. $19.50

The Art of Engraving
Tools and Examples
This print is from an engraving, dated 1720. Prior to the invention of photoengraving by Joseph Niepce in 1826, all engraved lettering was done by hand. This print shows the tools of the 18th century engraver and examples of engraved type styles. Engraving is a technique of making prints from metal plates, usually of copper, into which a design has been incised with a cutting tool called a burin. Burins are tempered steel instruments with oblique points and cork-covered or wooden handles which fit into the palm of the hand. In order to guide the point of the burin in a free and sensitive manner and to prevent it from becoming buried in the metal, the steel section is grasped with the thumb and fingers near its point, the edge of the thumb pressing against and gliding along the surface of the plate. Engraving originated around the middle of the 15th century, independently in the Rhine Valley in Germany and in northern Italy. It developed out of the goldsmith’s art and the Italian niello work. Because of 19th century technological developments, such as photoengraving and the photographic halftone, hand engraving is currently used only in the fine arts. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25971. $19.50

The Quill Pen Technique
Proper Body Posture and Position of the Hand
This print is from an engraving, dated 1770. Charles Paillasson (fl. 1760), one of the more eminent calligraphers of his time, created the drawing for this engraving to illustrate the proper body posture and hand position for practising calligraphy with the quill pen. A quill pen is made from a flight feather (preferably a primary) of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used as instruments for writing with ink before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the ball point pen came into use. The hand-cut goose quill is still a superior calligraphy tool, providing a sharp stroke and flexibility unmatched in steel pens. The shaft of the feather acts as an ink reservoir and ink flows to the tip by capillary action. Reed pens (Greek: kalamos) were made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or length of bamboo and have been found in Ancient Egyptian sites dating from the 4th Century BC. By 700 A.D. the quill had replaced the reed pen. Common writing equipment in medieval times were the quill and parchment or paper. The strongest quills were those taken from living birds in the spring from the five outer left wing feathers. The left wing was favored because the feathers curved outward and away when used by a right-handed writer. Each bird was chosen for its special characteristics. Goose feathers were most common; swan feathers were of a premium grade being scarcer and more expensive. For making fine lines, crow feathers were the best, and then came the feathers of the eagle, owl, hawk and turkey. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25972. $19.50

Preparation of the Feather Quill Pen
Preparing the Point and the Proportions of the Point
This print is from an engraving, dated 1770. This print illustrates the preparation of the quill pen point and the proportions of the point. Charles Paillasson (fl. 1760), one of the more eminent calligraphers of his time, created the drawing for this engraving. Quill pens were the dominant type of pen in the office, home, and for artistic use until the latter part of the 19th century. A quill pen is made from a flight feather (preferably a primary) of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used as instruments for writing with ink before the metal dip pen, the fountain pen, and eventually the ball point pen came into use. The greatest difficulty with feather quill pens is ensuring an even flow of ink as well as that, on average, they only lasted for a week before replacement was necessary. A wide range of inventors took on the task of an improved writing device — resulting in the mondern fountain pen. The oldest known fountain pen that has survived today was designed by a Frenchmen named M. Bion and dated 1702. Peregrin Williamson, a Baltimore shoemaker, received the first American patent for a pen in 1809. John Scheffer received a British patent in 1819 for his half quill, half metal pen that he attempted to mass manufacture. John Jacob Parker patented the first self-filling fountain pen in 1831. However, early fountain pen models were plagued by ink spills and other failures that left them impractical and hard to sell. Lewis Waterman, an insurance salesman, was inspired to improve the early fountain pen designs after destroying a valuable sales contract with leaky-pen ink. Lewis Waterman's idea was to add an air hole in the nib and three grooves inside the feed mechanism. Waterman patented the first practical fountain pen in 1884. A Hungarian journalist named Laszlo Biro invented the first ballpoint pen in 1938, fitting his pen with a tiny ball bearing in its tip. As the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated picking up ink from the ink cartridge and leaving it on the paper. Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25973. $19.50

19th Century Universal Work Station
This print is from an engraving, dated 1880. Created by G. Boudriot, of Germany, this universal work station was designed for printers layout, office workers, draftsmen, architects, engineers, artists, and others who required comfort, fast and easy adjustments, good lighting, and access to accessories. The construction was cast-iron and wood. The lighting at the time would have been a gas-operated lamp, eventually replaced by an electrical lamp. Here is a quote from 1880. . . “The drawing board is suspended from two sliding frames by ropes passing over pulleys on the top of the easel, and is balanced by a ball weight attached to the ropes. The board can be inclined at any desired angle by means of adjustable arms, carrying sliding carriages, from one of which the lamp is suspended. A small table for instruments is suspended from the other. The easel can be quickly adjusted to suit persons of different heights and to accommodate different kinds of work. The table is easily constructed and it seems to be very convenient and well arranged.” Print size: 8.5" x 11". Print No. 25974. $19.50