Show themes

Intaglio colour printing

Tudor colour printing

Intaglio printing followed a very different trajectory than relief printing in England. Woodcuts were printed in England from 1481; intaglio from 1545. They are produced with different materials and techniques (metal plates incised with burins, not woodblocks cut with knives) and printed with different inks on different presses. Although only one series of Tudor intaglio prints issued in any colour other than black is currently known, it suggests that intaglio printers in Tudor England also began experimenting with colour printing generations earlier than has been realised.