The past twenty-five years saw a decisive change in the study of early European colour prints. Before, focus was on 16th-century chiaroscuro woodcuts and 18th-century intaglio colour prints mainly. Recent studies have disclosed a much wider area of the use of colour in European prints and printing, challenging many earlier assumptions. The 2024–2025 Jacoba Lugt-Klever Fellowship, awarded to Ad Stijnman, was aimed at compiling a monograph on the history of European colour prints, book illustrations and ephemera from the long early modern period, working title A Brighter Vision: European Colour Printing 1450 to 1830.

The concept texts are presently completed and edited. The volume will discuss, among many others, antecedents of European colour printing, style and function of colour prints, materials and techniques, historical terminology, and developments through the ages, These approaches offer scholars opportunities to collaborate in multi-disciplinary research projects. The study will be supported by a generous selection of illustrations of colour-printed materials covering a range of subjects, passages from primary technical sources on colour printing processes, results of instrumental analysis of objects, and quotes from historical contemporaries. Such an encompassing approach is useful to the art historian and book historian, conservation scientist and paper conservator, artist and printer, institutional and private collector.

The Fellowship was funded by the Fondation Custodia and the RKD.

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Preliminary​

For the Contents of A Brighter Vision: European Colour Printing 1450–1830 see here (PDF, 84KB, update of 1 January 2026).

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Chapters

1 – General Introduction

Approaching European colour prints from different perspectives allows multiple transverse connections to be made. In the present volume this is achieved by including explanations of ink recipes, printing techniques and printmaking processes, together with considerations of the functions and aesthetics of colour prints. Their antecedents, as well as their history in the long early modern period, are discussed. Images of colour impressions are compared, in the aggregate and in detail.

 

All these aspects are approached individually and in various combinations. The broader overview created in this way reveals gaps in our knowledge. Conversely it makes it possible to place particular works in their wider historical context, to debate accepted interpretations, to address unresolved issues, and to raise questions never asked before.

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2 – Materials and Techniques

The present work is a study of colour-printed images and texts, a choice made on material and technical grounds. The focus of this chapter is therefore on colour ink recipes, their constituents and production, their use in printing and printmaking, and methods for their examination. In addition, coloured supports and ways of introducing colour to impressions after printing are discussed. Such an encompassing approach assists the authentication and identification of the object being examined. It provides insight into its production, the causes for detoriation, and subsequent conservation. It also links materials and techniques to the object’s style and the studio involved.

 

This illustrates how and why human observation, instrumental analysis, art technological source research and reconstruction research can be useful to the art historian and book historian, conservation scientist and paper conservator, artist and printer. Together, they offer scholars opportunities to collaborate in multi-disciplinary research projects. Ultimately, it is the choice and handling of tools, machines and materials that determine the outward appearance of, in this case, the colour print. This shows that style and technique are inseparable.

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3 – Antecedents

The oldest surviving European print, the Sion Textile, is in colour. It is stamped in black and red inks on linen in the third quarter of the fourteenth century. This object stands at the beginning of European printing, yet it did not appear out of the blue, and its precursors have received relatively little attention in modern literature. By contrast, the history of the introduction of colour in intaglio and lithographic printing – both printing processes invented in Central Europe, in the 1430s and in 1796–1798 respectively – has received close attention in recent years and shows clear continuity.

 

Colour-stamped objects reached Europe from the early Middle Ages onwards. Non-black inks were used at the outset of European letterpress printing in the 1450s and colour ink recipes for stamping cloth are documented contemporaneously. This underlines the importance of first discussing possible – both non-European and European – precursors of relief printing that led to stamping cloth, printing woodcuts and metal-type letterpress in colour in Europe. This chapter therefore brings together potential precursors from prehistoric times to the fifteenth century in order to examine historical developments leading to European colour printing.

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4 – From Gutenberg to Senefelder

The final chapter guides the reader through European colour printing from Johann Gutenberg’s first attempts at red letterpress around 1452, through chiaroscuro woodcut and trichromatic printing, to Alois Senefelder's trials at colour lithography. Senefelder's death in 1834 coincides with the beginning of the groundbreaking decade of changes that would eventually shape the modern graphic industry.

 

The history narrated here is based on the close observation of colour-printed single-leaf prints, letterpress, book illustrations, print series and ephemera. The goal is to disentangle the multiple and often parallel lines of development running through five centuries.

 

Discussions proceed from a material and technical perspective, encompassing relief printing, intaglio printing and the beginning of lithography. The chapter reaches into art- and book historical studies, includes cartography, and touches upon the histories of textiles and wallpaper. Emphasis is placed on impressions made with oil-based inks.

 

The history of early modern colour printing is marked by many cross-references, dead ends, revivals and reinventions. It is multi-dimensional. The range of available printing and printmaking techniques expanded during the course of the eighteenth century and grew widely in the nineteenth century. New ideas for introducing colour into print emerged continually. Accordingly, the discussion explores and identifies the curiosity of practitioners and audiences alike regarding how colour could be used in printing and printmaking.

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Appendix

For a Glossary of Technical Terms see here (PDF, 158KB, update of 14 December 2025).

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For a General Chronology of European Colour Printing see here (PDF, 208KB, update of 14 December 2025).

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For a Chronological Bibliography of Early Modern European Colour Printing see:

- Part I: Publications up to and including the Year 2000 (PDF, 787KB, update of 14 December 2025)

- Part II: Publications from the Year 2001 onward (PDF, 281KB, update of 14 December 2025)

Part I includes an introduction to the theme of the bibliography, and has Name, Title and URL indices on both parts at the end.

The separation at 2000/2001 is because research on the history of colour prints takes a new turn from the beginning of the 21st century.

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