The Origins of Engraving: The 1406 Dotted Prints

The 1406 Prints: Unveiling the True Origins of European Engraving

A groundbreaking discovery at the Bibliothèque Impériale has unearthed two prints dated to 1406, significantly predating the earliest known woodcuts. This analysis explores the evidence for their authenticity and argues that the 'gravure en criblé' or dotted print technique on metal, not xylography, marks the true beginning of printmaking in Europe. These works, a 'Carrying of the Cross' and a 'Holy Face', challenge long-held beliefs about the development of reproductive arts in the early 15th century.

The origins of engraving have been the subject of so many in-depth discussions and fruitful investigations since the second half of the last century that it seems almost impossible to add anything to the sum of knowledge we possess. And yet, not everything has been said; not all questions have been clarified, nor have all the monuments been rediscovered. In publishing the results of a recent discovery today, we do not—need it be said?—claim to close the debate or produce definitive arguments. Our sole intention is to contribute one more element, an authentic one, to the body of acquired information. We wish to present the fact that the Imperial Library now possesses two prints that are not only nearly half a century older than the first proofs of Florentine nielli, but are also several years older than the most ancient dated woodcuts known until now: the Virgin of 1418, held at the Royal Library of Belgium; the celebrated Saint Christopher of 1423, belonging to Lord Spencer; and the Saint Sebastian of 1437, owned by the Imperial Library of Vienna, among others.

How did these two precious prints become the property of France? And what evidence demonstrates the authenticity of their origin? It is necessary, above all, to explain this.

A Landmark Discovery at the Imperial Library

A few weeks ago, the Imperial Library was offered the opportunity to acquire a 15th-century Latin manuscript. It was a collection of German provenance, of no apparent importance regarding its text, but containing, toward the middle of the volume, two of those pieces known as being "en criblé"—in the dotted manner. These works are recommended, in the absence of other merits, by their rarity, the singularity of their execution, and their very particular character among the engraved monuments belonging to the era of incunabula (early printed books).

The curator of the Department of Prints, to whom the proposal was made because of the presence of these two engravings in the manuscript, initially saw it as merely an opportunity to expand the series of works of the same genre, but of uncertain date, already held in our rich national collection. However, a few numbers he had noticed here and there while leafing through the manuscript, along with some semblance of chronological indications, allowed him to hope for a more significant result—perhaps even reliable information as to the age of the prints themselves.

These prints offered a remarkable feature: instead of being, as is usual, glued onto the pages of the collection as isolated ornaments that could have been added to the text later, they had been printed directly onto the leaves before any work by the copyist's hand. This is proven with indisputable evidence by the lines of script written on the recto around the engravings, and by other lines on the verso, spaced so as to impinge as little as possible on the printed area. Therefore, if one could succeed in determining the precise date of the manuscript, the date of the prints would, in turn, become positive, since the execution of these two pieces had infallibly preceded the transcription of the text that accompanies them.

Consequently, the curator of the Department of Prints hastened to acquire the collection for the collections entrusted to his care, reserving the right to seek, for the solution of paleographic difficulties, the insights and authority of the proper experts. And here is what, with the assistance, or rather under the direction, of his two learned colleagues from the Department of Manuscripts, Messrs. Natalis de Wailly and Léopold Delisle, he believes he has managed to unravel and establish.

Notes

¹ In the first of these two phrases, it is true, the date 1413 is written as 1813, which would give 1473. But there is here a manifest slip of the pen, since the year thus figured is, by the very terms of the text, that which results from the number 19 added to 1394, i.e., 1413. (*Anno Domini 1394 ... post elapsum 19 annorum quod erit anno 1813.*) Moreover, in the table in black and red ink of which we have just spoken and which indicates the lunar cycles, these four figures 1413 are as clearly written as in the cited phrase: *Donec elabentur*, etc. ↑

² *Item cancellarius Parisiensis Johannes de Gersona in tripertito suo inter cætera sic dicit.* ("Likewise the Parisian chancellor Jean de Gerson in his tripartite work among other things says thus.") ↑

³ See *Joannis Gersonii opera omnia... opera et studio M. Lud. Ellies du Pin*. (Antwerp, 1706), vol. 1, p. 45, and, in the same volume (p. 426), the letter written from Paris (*scriptum Parisiis*) by which Gerson asks a bishop to have copies of the *Opus tripertitum* distributed to the parish priests of his diocese. ↑

⁴ One of Jean Gerson's closest friends, Jacques de Ciresio, expressly states that the *Treatise on the Use of Meat* was composed before 1400. ↑

⁵ *Jean Gerson*, by R. Thomassy. Paris, 1843. ↑

⁶ *Études historiques et critiques sur l'Imitation de J.-C.*, by G. Ch. Vert. Toulouse. ↑

⁷ *Revue des Deux Mondes*, September 1, 1868. ↑

⁸ "What seems certain," says M. Malou (*Dissertation sur l'auteur de l'Imitation*, Brussels, 3rd edition), "is that the first book was composed before the year 1421, the first three before 1425, and the four books before 1441." ↑

⁹ See *L'Artiste*, 1839, p. 143 et seq. ↑

¹⁰ An opinion similar to that expressed by M. Léon de Laborde was more recently expressed by M. Eugène Piot in a work entitled: *Nouvelles recherches sur la gravure en relief sur métal et sur bois* (*Cabinet de l'amateur*, 1861, p. 67), with this difference, however, that M. Piot admits, from the origin, the simultaneous use of the two processes of relief engraving. "The first relief engravings," he says, "executed to be used for printing, were done indiscriminately on metal and on wood." ↑

¹¹ It goes without saying that in assigning this starting point to the history of engraving, we mean to speak only of the beginnings of the art in Europe and of the attempts that were accomplished at a relatively modern period. That the processes of relief engraving for the reproduction of writing and figured objects were known to the Chinese as early as the 10th century of our era, as affirmed, among other scholars, by the Reverend Robert Morrison (*A dictionary of the Chinese language*, Macao 1815-1823), is a question foreign to our subject and even, to a certain extent, an indifferent one. If engraving was discovered and practiced in Asia long before its secrets were divulged among us, it is no less true that, like printing, engraving was invented, or, if you will, reinvented in Europe, the absence of all communication with China in the Middle Ages rendering necessarily sterile for the West the examples that China might have given. ↑

¹² Duchesne, *Essai sur les nielles*, p. 10 and 11. — *Voyage d'un iconophile*, p. 223. ↑

¹³ Imperial Library of Paris. ↑

¹⁴ This refers to the print now in the collection of the Louvre Museum, formerly in the Rothschild collection. ↑

The 1406 Prints: Unveiling the True Origins of European Engraving

A Landmark Discovery at the Imperial Library

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