Early master printers, William Caxton / R.H. Sommer, Chicago. – Vintage Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
This rare historic print captures Early master printers, William Caxton / R.H. Sommer, Chicago. in remarkable detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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Early master printers, William Caxton / R.H. Sommer, Chicago.
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This 1921 halftone reproduces a portrait of William Caxton, the merchant and translator who set up the first printing press in England at Westminster around 1476. It was issued in Chicago by R.H. Sommer and copyrighted by The Inland Printer Company, a trade journal for American printers, so it was made for a working printing audience rather than as a standalone art object. Its series title, "Early Master Printers," shows the publisher's interest in tracing the craft back to its founders. The halftone process, which broke images into fine dots for mechanical reproduction, was itself a relatively new method for printing portraits in magazines of the period.
| Created / published | 1921, c1921. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 photomechanical print : halftone. |
| Genre | Portraits 1920-1930.Halftone photomechanical prints 1920-1930. |
| Notes | K151516 U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright by The Inland Printer Company. |
| Subjects | Caxton, William,--ca. 1422-1491 or 2. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 3,285 × 4,096 px · prints to 11 × 14 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-178666 |
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