A quick note here adding to a growing collection of "deep black" antiquarian images--this one, oddly enough, a simple black sky. As it turns out, there are not that many old images of black skies, night skies...nor are there any great numbers showing dark room interiors, or inside of caves. So when I come across an interesting old engraving/woodcut with a lot of black, it gains my attention. And so with the following, which is the title page from the Spanish astronomer Bernardus de Granollachs, Lunarium: in quo reperiuntur Coniunctiones & Oppositiones Lunae..., which was a small pamphlet of 16 pages printed in Rome in 1516. The booklet contained tables of conjunctions and oppositions of the Moon, as well as this gorgeous title page.
Some of the other images in this running thread include the following:
Frontispiece to Frederico Frezzi, Il Quadriregio, printed in Florence, 1508:
"The Sick Vulture and his Mother", from Aesop, Vita Esopi, printed in Florence, 1508:
And the Peter Brueghel (from this post)
The rarity of large black areas in old prints has a simple technical explanation.
1. It's hard to get nice smooth blacks. The plates get damaged during a large print run, or accumulate dirt. This is evident in your first two images, there are lots of pock marks in the plate that print as white spots. You can conceal this with textures (like the other pics) but that has its own set of problems.
2. More black = more ink = more money.
Posted by: Charles | 02 December 2013 at 09:25 PM