What am I looking at?

richardgrahamesmit
Sep 27, 2021
6 min read

Updated: Oct 7, 2021

The use of the word “antiquarian” as an adjective signifies a reluctance to resort to “antique”, with its periodically prescribed meanings. Books and prints less than a hundred years old are frequently described as antiquarian, though this may jar with the old school of booksellers. But the word also implies, “of interest to the antiquarian” (the noun). And it sounds more impressive.

The relationship between antiquarian books and prints

Antiquarian prints fall into one of two categories:

Independent prints.

Prints published independently include old master etchings; eighteenth and nineteenth century caricatures; large, usually portrait or genre, mezzotints, and many of the decorative stipples of the eighteenth century; independent large topographical prints; modern limited edition prints; and so on. There is also sub-class – prints published in ‘books’, bound or loose in wrappers, with scant or no text, intended only as collections of separate prints. Much of Goya’s work falls into this category, and the fact most of his prints were published in series – Los Caprichos, Los Proverbios, for example - does not alter the fact that each plate stands on its own, without necessary reference to another.

Prints intended for or bound into books or atlases

The majority of prints sold by antiquarian print sellers are those that have been printed separately from the letterpress and then bound up with the sheets of text. The reason for this is that, generally, apart from woodcuts or wood engravings, it was not possible to combine pictorial prints with text, for the simple reason that letterpress is a type of relief printing, and engravings and lithographs are not. Instead, these would be printed separately and instructions given to the binder about their placing within the book. The common perception that antiquarian prints have in most cases been excised from books is of course quite true, especially in the cases of topographical and natural history prints, but in many other genres too. The practice of collectors or dealers “breaking” books for their illustrations is hundreds of years old. In the nineteenth century the excision of miniatures and illuminated capitals from medieval manuscripts was commonplace, unrestrained by any antiquarian, aesthetic or ethical considerations. Ruskin himself partook in this pursuit. However, the advent of more enlightened thinking in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been accompanied by, not a decline, but a growth of the practice to quasi-industrial proportions.

Prints from this category that end up in a dealer’s stock may have come from various sources: from complete books broken for the sole purpose of extracting and selling the prints; from defective or damaged books deemed to be not worth preserving; from the millions of loose bookplates circulating in the market; or from odd ‘parts’.

This last category needs explanation. In the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, it became the practice, for commercial reasons, to issue some books with plates, not in one go, but bit by bit, over a period of months or years. The most well-known example is the practice of issuing illustrated novels serially – a precursor of current television or web series – though the principle motive in this case was to engage public attention. The practice was also common in the cases of topographical, natural history, and other works. Miscellaneous parts are still often met with. Usually they are from the many topographical works illustrated with steel engravings published from about 1830 onwards, occasionally from natural history works, such as the flower books of Jane Loudon, or from atlases. A part typically consists of a few plates and a few leaves of text, sewn, glued or stapled into printed wrappers. This method of publishing enabled the publishers to acquire an immediate return from their subscribers, the individuals who had undertaken to contribute to the production of the work, and in some cases to gauge whether the project they were engaged upon was worth continuing. The alternative was to invest large sums in the preparation of the work without knowing whether, once complete, it would sell. Publishing was a gamble, which the publisher did not always win. (The most famous example is perhaps John Thomson’s Scottish Atlas, which bankrupted him despite its issue in parts!)

Having said all that, the fact remains that most small prints and many large prints on the market were intended for, or have come from, books. Buyers will have to make up their own minds whether they think the process of obtaining them is ethical or not. For the dealer, it is, unfortunately, often a purely commercial decision as to whether to break a book. A colleague of mine once remarked, “they’d slice up their own grandmothers if they thought there were a couple of nice coloured aquatints inside them”! But the public’s demand for inexpensive items of immediate visual relevance, and its lack of appreciation of the craftsmanship and artistry involved in the production of these books, is also to blame. Some dealers, however – perhaps those who understood books before they understood prints – have reservations. They may be regarded as being too “precious” by the vulgarians of the trade, but this is an area in which in my view there can’t be too much room for an appreciation of good paper, printing, binding, and scarcity. (While many of the steel-plate books of the mid-nineteenth century were printed in tens of thousands, and were intended, less as books with illustrations, than a series of plates with some perfunctory supporting text, the question still needs to be asked, how many survive, and in what condition?) I have on several occasions declined to sell a plate book to a print dealer, in one case just after I had had the binding carefully restored. But nearly all books come onto the market periodically, and their uncertain fate is in the hands of a group of individuals possessing varying degrees of taste and avarice. One can only hope an appropriate punishment awaits the worst offenders in hell.

Wood cuts, and later wood engravings, being relief prints, could however be printed with letterpress, (though they were also sometimes printed separately, in the same way as other types of print); the blocks would be cut to an appropriate thickness and clamped into the frame in whatever place was desired, then inked and printed at the same time as the text. This is why in certain prints in the print seller’s inventory, usually those printed on thin or inferior stock, letterpress can be seen on the back of the sheet. Nevertheless woodcuts and wood engravings are just as technically and aesthetically important, and the same remarks about sourcing apply.

A note on maps

The most popular type of antiquarian print on the market is the map. Just as other prints, they are usually leaves in a book - an atlas or a geography or similar - rather than independent productions. (Most of the independent maps published during the nineteenth century and up to today are folded within covers.) The earliest atlas, containing sixty-one leaves (the first blank) and twenty-six maps based on Ptolemy’s Geographia, was published in Italy sometime between 1472 and 1482. The first edition was printed in Bologna, subsequent editions in Florence and Rome. Thus it was Italy that was responsible for the revival of interest in classical geography, and Italy that was supreme in cartography, thanks to such cartographers as Giacomo Gastaldi, until the publication of Ortelius’s Teatrum Orbis Terrarum, at Amsterdam in 1570, often cited as the first modern atlas. The Germans were also important in the publication of atlases from the late fifteenth century and through the sixteenth. They were the first to exploit contemporary material, adding new maps to the Ptolemaic corpus from 1482 through the editorship of Nicolaus Germanus, culminating in an edition in 1513 with twenty new maps based on contemporary sources. And they were perhaps the most prolific publishers of maps during the sixteenth century. (A brief but dense account of early cartography can be found in R.V. Tooley, Maps and Map Makers, Batsford, 1949.)

Maps from the Teatrum Orbis Terrarum, unsophisticated but highly decorative, many published coloured, are probably the early maps most familiar to a modern collector. They were continually updated from new sources, and the cartographers credited. They also provide some insight into the practice of breaking atlases for their contents. Marcel P. R. van den Broecke, (Ortelius Atlas Maps, H&S, 1997), writing after the explosion in prices of antique maps in the second half of the twentieth century, suggested there were at least 1,100 copies of the atlas in institutional collections, and 500 or so in private ownership. This second category circulate on the open market, and he suggested about ten copies were broken every year. Given that prices have maintained or increased their level, it is unlikely that this figure has declined since. What the significance of this loss is must be left to the individual to decide.

The growth in the publication of maps and atlases, particularly during the second half of the eighteenth century, in response to geographical discoveries, and in the nineteenth century, due to social and industrial development as well as advances in the efficiency of printing, is well-known; the maps of the Victorian era on the market probably outnumber all others put together. However, even then that does not mean that the atlases are all common, or their supply inexhaustible.

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John Martin (1789-1854)

John Martin (1789-1854) was born at Haydon Bridge near Newcastle, and in 1803 at the age of 14 moved to that city to take up the post of apprentice to a coach-builder. In 1804 he met Boniface Musso, an Italian master-painter, from whom he received some artistic instruction, and through whom he became acquainted with two important engravers, Bartolozzi and Schiavonetti. In 1806 he moved to London and for a few years worked in a glass and china painting business owned by Musso’s son Charles. In 1809 he married and after the collapse of Charles’s business was employed as a glass-painter by the firm of William Collins. His early struggles are related by him in his Sketches of my Life.
He had been producing small watercolours and sepia sketches for several years, but in 1811 he had a major oil-painting, entitled A Landscape Composition, hung at the Royal Academy. A year or so later he left his job at Collins, feeling confident enough to embark upon a career as a professional artist. Between 1812 and 1816 he supported himself and his family “teaching – painting small oil pictures, glass and enamel paintings, watercolour drawings; in fact, the usual tale of a struggling artist’s life” (Sketches of my Life). But during the same period he was experimenting with large canvases, and has also tried his hand at etching, translating some of his small drawings onto the copper plate.
In 1816 came a turning-point, with the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still upon Gibeon, the first of the major large spectacular oils for which he is now famous. The painting in fact measures about five feet by seven and a half, and the multitude of figures are dwarfed by the immensity and the sense of mass of the landscape. Of course, Martin’s main artistic interest in the preceding years had been in landscape, but now the massive increase in scale had been accompanied by an equal increase in weight and substance, and, equally interesting and innovative, in motion.
Further success followed. Joshua was re-exhibited at the Royal Institution in 1817, to even greater acclaim. In 1819 Martin sold his painting The Fall of Babylon for 400 guineas, which liberated him from debt. That painting exemplified his interest in architectural mass and perspective, whilst paintings such as Macbeth (1819) refelcted his love of landscape. In a sense, these two sides of his artistic expression sprang from the same root – the desire to manifest the sense of great mass and substance, whether it be the creation of God or Man. In 1821 he exhibited the greatest and still the most famous of his large paintings, Belshazzar’s Feast, and a year later he sold The Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum for 500 guineas.
At this point in his career he was being asked to produce prints of his great paintings so that the public demand for copies might be met. At first his idea was to etch the outlines of his designs on large copper plates which would then be passed to specialist mezzotint engravers to complete. Mezzotint seemed the ideal medium to reproduce the swirling skies and ragged heights of his work. (For mezzotint, a plate is treated with a ‘rocker’, an engraving tool which has the effect of raising a fine burr over all of its surface, so that if inked and printed it would print solid black. The “engraver” then produces the design by scraping off this burr to varying levels: if completely removed, the result when printed is blank, or white. The overall effect of mezzotint printing is a velvety texture, amenable to gentle gradations of shade. It was extensively used in the late eighteenth century for portraits, where it could beautifully express the soft folds of clothing and drapery, and the misty distances behind the sitters.) He asked Charles Turner, one of the foremost engravers of the time, to work on the plate of Joshua he had prepared, and later G.H. Phillips to execute similar work on a plate of his Pan and Syrinx. The agreement with Turner specified a fee ” not exceeding 500 guineas”, which gives some idea of the prestige attached to the process of engraving at the time. (Twenty years earlier, when John Boydell had commissioned paintings and engravings of those paintings for his Shakespeare Gallery, the engravers were usually paid many times the fees paid to the artists! The art of engraving was viewed in quite a different light from that of the modern age.)
But Martin subsequently cancelled the contract with Turner, and decided to engrave his own works with his own hands – a bold decision, given the little experience he had in the practice of mezzotinting. It has been suggested by Michael Campbell, author of the definitive bibliography of Martin, that he was influenced by the creative flexibility of the medium as demonstrated by the other engraver, Phillips, who was able by skilful alteration to completely change the subject of the Pan and Syruinx plate. Moreover it was unusual at this time for a painter to engrave plates of his own work, let alone to engrave original designs straight onto the plate, as Martin did. (It was thought quite out of the ordinary, for instance, that Turner should be involved in etching the original outlines of his designs of the plates for the Liber Studiorum.) By 1824 he had produced a number of small mezzotints, and in the same year he was approached by a publisher, Samuel Prowett, who proposed the production of twenty-four mezzotints to illustrate a new edition of Paradise Lost, for which Martin was to be paid 2,000 guineas. Martin eagerly undertook the engraving of these plates, which were completed during the course of 1824 and 1825, as well as a second series of plates in slightly smaller format. (The images on the larger plates measure about 20 x 27 cms. or vice versa, the smaller ones about 15 x 21 cms.) The volumes were published in 1827.
The plates for Paradise Lost were engraved on steel, and represent some of the earliest steel engravings, and certainly the earliest steel plate mezzotints published. Before 1820 nearly all metal engraving had used copper plates, the softness of the metal making them amenable to the engraving tools. But around 1820 Thomas Lupton had perfected plates of soft steel, which, though still not as soft as copper (and therefore not providing quite the same degree of artistic freedom in the use of the graver) could now be engraved without difficulty. The new steel plates were much more resistant to wear than copper and could therefore produce many more impressions before any re-engraving was necessary.
The innovation caused a revolution in the production of prints. In a single decade steel had ousted copper as the prime material for printing plates: in 1820 99% of metal engraving plates were of copper; by 1830 probably 80% were of steel, and as the century progressed the steel plate soon became the normal choice for the engraver. The harder texture of the material, its ability to accept finer and closer lines and greater detail, changed the nature of intaglio printing. This change was more evident in pure line engraving, but Martin was dealing primarily with mezzotint, though his plates do contain others forms of engraving, such as drypoint. It is arguable that a mezzotint scraped from a steel plate has a slightly different appearance to one scraped from a copper plate; and theoretically the harder metal should allow for a finer burr, offering the possibility of a denser blackness and finer gradations of darkness, which may have aided or helped to form Martin’s conceptions. Martin, unusually, designed his images on the plate, not from prepared drawings, demonstrating his enthusiasm for the process of engraving. He also involved himself in the whole process of printmaking, frequently supervising the printing of his plates and setting up his own printing-room in the basement of his house in order that he might experiment with techniques of inking and printing. And in the late 1820s he also published many of his own prints.
The Paradise Lost mezzotints were a huge success, both commercially and in terms of Martin’s artistic prestige. At the same time as he was working on them, he produced a large mezzotint of Belshazzar’s Feast, which was published in 1826. And he continued to produce his large, spectacular oils – in 1825 The Creation, in 1826 The Deluge. He was now at the height of his fame, which was perhaps the source of a certain amount of jealousy, and criticism from other artists who saw his type of art as showy or cheap. And throughout his career he felt slighted by the Royal Academy, which he believed had denied him recognition as an important artist.
In 1829 his brother Jonathan set fire to York Minster, and was declared insane and detained in Bethlem Hospital, where he died in 1838. John, however, had by now perfected his engraving technique, and continued his ferocious programme of work, producing his famous Illustrations of the Bible in 1831, and many fine watercolours, whilst also working on his project to provide London with a new system of water-supply and drainage. During the 1830s, however, his fortunes began to decline; despite the fact the standard of his work in mezzotint, watercolour, and even lithography, was at its height, he could not translate it into commercial success. By 1837 he was almost bankrupt. The next year sold his plates for the Illustrations of the Bible to the publisher Charles Tilt, who already had some of the Milton plates. By 1848 he had sold off most of his major plates and closed his printing-room. His last major work, completed shortly before his death in 1854, was the trilogy of huge oil paintings, The Last Judgement, The Great Day of His Wrath, and The Plains of Heaven.
Editions of Martin’s plates for Paradise Lost
Apart from separately-issued sets of proofs without text, in 1827 Prowett published four editions of the work:
Imperial Folio, about 55cms. tall, containing lettered proofs of the large prints, limited to 50 copies;
Imperial Quarto, about 39 cms. tall, containing fully-lettered large prints;
Imperial Quarto, about 39 cms. tall, containing lettered proofs of the small prints, limited to 50 copies;
Imperial Octavo, about 28 cms. tall, containing fully-lettered small prints.
Each edition was issued in twelve monthly parts intended to be purchased by subscription. Single prints were also available.
Later editions:
>1833: Octavo edition of the small prints published in parts by Charles Tilt;
1833: Octavo edition published by Charles Tilt containing the small prints;
1838: Octavo edition published by Charles Tilt containing the small prints;
1846: Quarto or Folio edition, published by Charles Whittingham, about 37 cms. tall, containing the small prints;
1849: Large Octavo edition, published by Henry Washbourne, about 29(?)cms. tall, containing the small prints;
1850: Large Octavo edition, published by Henry Washbourne, about 29(?)cms. tall, containing the small prints;
1853: Imperial Quarto edition, published by Henry Washbourne, containing the large prints;
1853: Large Octavo edition, published by Henry Washbourne, about 29(?)cms. tall, containing the small prints;
1858: Large Octavo edition, published by Henry Washbourne, 29 cms. tall, containing the small prints;
1866: Folio edition, published by Sampson, Low, 38 cms. tall, containing the large prints.
It is probable that some re-engraving of Martin’s small plates began when they passed into the hands of Charles Tilt, and continued during the publication of subsequent editions. This re-engraving was not usually of high quality, and tended to be confined to the more obvious features of the designs; as time went on, the subtle lines and tones of Martin’s backgrounds tended to disappear. However, it should be said that between the first Tilt edition of 1833 and the Washbourne editions of 1849/50 the deterioration in the prints is slight, only apparent under magnification, and mainly due to a loss of definition in the detail, which can be attributed to natural wear. And during this period at least, the publishers seem to have been cautious in interfering with Martin’s work. The large plates were also re-engraved for the editions of Whittingham and Sampson Low, and this work was generally of good quality.
Because different plates tended to wear at different rates, and because repair and re-engraving were executed ad hoc, in these later editions the plates in any single edition are unlikely to be in uniform state, and moreover any two examples of the same edition may contain the same plate in differing states of preservation.
Moreover, there are rare examples, not recorded in the bibliography, of later editions containing the original smaller proofs, as distinct from re-engraved plates to which the word “proof” has been added: (see, for example, book No. 1027BS in the catalogue). There are also examples of late editions containing what appear to be early non-proof impressions. In short, it cannot be assumed that the state of the plates in any edition conforms with rational expectations for that edition. It is possible that early impressions of the plates passed from Prowett to later publishers along with the plates themselves.
[The factual content of this article is largely based on the standard bibliography of Martin’s work, John Martin, 1789-1854: Creation of Light by Michael J. Campbell, Valencia 2006.]

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