A pedantic point: I think the king would probably have been cut out of the block, not covered up, else the type would not have sat level in the forme. A portion of his gown is still visible on the right.
Not if all the elements of the printed page were locked into one "forme", which I presume they were. If the type were to be placed on top of the block, it would stand proud by slightly less than one inch!
If the sections were each printed by one of the elements that were together locked in the forme, doesn't it suppose that the print was modular to begin with? Such that the dead king's oblong (trapezoid?) was an independent piece that could be included or excluded? (the big of skirt that appears on the last iteration seems to say no.) Sorry if it's a dumb question, I know little about printing but am curious about this.
Also, Smyth's post seems to imply, I'd say convincingly, that the first of two examples is already a recycling. The dead king is indeed just a 90° rotated living king which therefore had not been originally thus drawn in this composition he appears in. If he could indeed be carved out (which sounds like a waste if worked out woodblocks were indeed so precious) still I don't suppose he could have been carved in.
A lot would depend on the format of the book (is it a folio? Octavo? etc.). If the woodblocks were printed separately then getting the registration right on a sheet with, say, an octavo imposition pattern (recto and verso) would be a nightmare. Not impossible, but much easier to use blocks of the same height as the type and capable of being locked together with the type.
That said, to my eye the king does look like a different style of work to the sermon, but just as bits can be cut off, so bits can be stuck together...
I'm no expert, so please take my comments with the necessary pinch of salt!
It’s the ones that appear across publications by different printers that I find most intriguing. One cause is presumably stock being sold or passed on when someone dies or goes out of business. But in the early 1640s for example you find the same woodcuts appearing in close succession in rival printers’ works. I like to imagine someone popping round the corner to borrow one from a colleague: “I really need a bishop and a ghost to illustrate this quarto satire about Laud… have you got anything?”. Or perhaps the carvers retained ownership of the block in some cases and flogged them to various printers? I don’t have a sense of whether carving the woodblocks was a specialised trade in its own right or just something given to apprentices who had shown a knack for it.
A pedantic point: I think the king would probably have been cut out of the block, not covered up, else the type would not have sat level in the forme. A portion of his gown is still visible on the right.
Mike
Wouldn't it have been possible to simply not ink that section?
Not if all the elements of the printed page were locked into one "forme", which I presume they were. If the type were to be placed on top of the block, it would stand proud by slightly less than one inch!
Thanks!
If the sections were each printed by one of the elements that were together locked in the forme, doesn't it suppose that the print was modular to begin with? Such that the dead king's oblong (trapezoid?) was an independent piece that could be included or excluded? (the big of skirt that appears on the last iteration seems to say no.) Sorry if it's a dumb question, I know little about printing but am curious about this.
Also, Smyth's post seems to imply, I'd say convincingly, that the first of two examples is already a recycling. The dead king is indeed just a 90° rotated living king which therefore had not been originally thus drawn in this composition he appears in. If he could indeed be carved out (which sounds like a waste if worked out woodblocks were indeed so precious) still I don't suppose he could have been carved in.
A lot would depend on the format of the book (is it a folio? Octavo? etc.). If the woodblocks were printed separately then getting the registration right on a sheet with, say, an octavo imposition pattern (recto and verso) would be a nightmare. Not impossible, but much easier to use blocks of the same height as the type and capable of being locked together with the type.
That said, to my eye the king does look like a different style of work to the sermon, but just as bits can be cut off, so bits can be stuck together...
I'm no expert, so please take my comments with the necessary pinch of salt!
Mike
It’s the ones that appear across publications by different printers that I find most intriguing. One cause is presumably stock being sold or passed on when someone dies or goes out of business. But in the early 1640s for example you find the same woodcuts appearing in close succession in rival printers’ works. I like to imagine someone popping round the corner to borrow one from a colleague: “I really need a bishop and a ghost to illustrate this quarto satire about Laud… have you got anything?”. Or perhaps the carvers retained ownership of the block in some cases and flogged them to various printers? I don’t have a sense of whether carving the woodblocks was a specialised trade in its own right or just something given to apprentices who had shown a knack for it.