 At the 1996 International Fine Print Dealers Association fair in New York, I noticed among that year’s offerings a group of sixteenth-century engravings by well-known artists that were adeptly painted with brilliant watercolors. Although I was familiar with hand-colored woodcuts, I had never before seen painted engravings like these and found them simultaneously disconcerting and compelling. One in particular caught my attention, The Triumph of Patience by Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert. Painted in an array of vibrant colors, the engraving depicts the triumphal procession of Patience and some of her allegorical cohorts, including Hope and Desire. The rich colors, extensively highlighted with gold, amplify the theatrical character of the image and seem perfectly suited to the mannerist composition and subject matter. I began to wonder why I had never before seen engravings that were colored. After all, the addition of paint to a linear black-and-white image seemed like a logical impulse.
Furthermore, the Renaissance was filled with colorful works of art, such as illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, tapestries, and oil paintings. Why would engravings, etchings, and woodcuts have remained uncolored?
The following year the BMA purchased Coornhert’s print for the collection, and thereafter, whenever I visited a museum print collection in the U.S. or Europe, I asked if they had any painted engravings. After a year or two of looking, I realized that there were enough hand-colored engravings in existence to warrant intensive study.
Because many curators and art historians assumed that the color was added within the last century in order to make the prints more marketable, I undertook the research with Thomas Primeau, associate paper conservator at the BMA. In the fall of 1999, Tom and I set off for three months of examining painted prints in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Germany. We found hundreds of examples of the practice in museums and private collections.
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