| Title |
|
Drucker (Search for the image) |
| Translated title |
Printer |
| Intro |
Text by dr D. Barnes, accompanying Bramer’s drawing of a printer (`drukker’) |
| Code of occupational group |
92110 |
| Description |
Two men are working in a printshop. At the left, a man wearing a soft cap stands at a work table, inking a plate. In the center, a printer turns the handles of a roller press. Close to the walls of the shop, pages of print, some with illustrations, are hanging to dry. The shop is illuminated with light entering a set of diamond-paned double windows at the rear.
The Dutch utilized printing presses to produce books, broadsheets, almanacs, maps, playing cards, and art prints which enjoyed great popularity. Printers frequently functioned as book sellers and publishers. Broadsheets, almanacs, and prints were often sold in market stalls rather than at the print shop.
Artists who produced images for printed materials in the 17th century no longer made much use of the earlier woodcut method. They employed etching, engraving, or mezzotint techniques. Often the image was designed by one artist and then executed by an engraver or etcher who prepared the metal plates which were later inked and pressed at the printshop. Delft had a number of printshops. Many printers belonged to the Gild of St. Luke. Although Bramer did not design or produce many prints himself, he would have known printers and been familiar with printshops.
Technology had changed printing techniques from the time Jost Amman created his woodcut account of the printer for the Ständebuch, and Bramer executed his drawing. At the end of the century, Jan Luyken executed illustrations for his emblem book, het Menselyk Bedryf, of the book printer, copper-plate printer, engraver, book-binder, and paper-maker, providing a full range of artisans concerned with producing printed materials. |
| Source |
Donna R. Barnes, Ed D, Street scenes, Leonard Bramer's drawings of seventeenth-century daily life (Hofstra Museum exhibition 1991). Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York.
Click here for the introductory essay on Bramer's drawings. |
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