Illustrated publications and the role of market forces in shaping representations of Egypt at a time when European colonial interests in the region were at their peak, with 80 color and black and white illustrations.

In the nineteenth century, following Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, new possibilities of travel and improvements in printing technology saw an emergence of publishing ventures in France and Britain dedicated to the production of albums and travel accounts featuring images of Muslim Egypt and Islamic architecture and catering to a growing European fascination with the East.

Visualizing Egypt analyzes the context and process of production of these highly illustrated publications, from their conceptualization to the finished product and its afterlife, from marketing to the sales of these books, and from circulation to their reception by nineteenth-century audiences. By tracing the long, arduous, and often risky publishing journeys of the makers of these books, including publishers, writers, and artists, such as the Frenchman Émile Prisse d’Avennes, Paulina Banas reveals a complex terrain of changing market demands, collaborations, and conflicting views, and the unsettled authorship of these works, prompting us to think more profoundly about artistic and intellectual exchange in the world of nineteenth-century Orientalist book production.

Visualizing Egypt considers nineteenth-century book illustrations on Egypt and the “Orient” not merely as expressions of enduring ideology and colonial propaganda, but as representations shaped by the often-overlooked commercial exigencies of the growing publishing industry and the reckless competition within it.

“Artistic printing techniques” consists of two high-quality boxes containing 45 original prints and
explanatory texts available in German, French or English. a general introduction to the relief, intaglio,
planographic and screen- printing techniques, as well as detailed explanations of the 19 processes
employed to produce each individual print.
The artist, Marcel Gähler, created this collection of original prints using the same subject of a dog
lying down to illustrate 19 different techniques. The graphic arts specialist, Hildegard Homburger,
contributes explanatory texts describing the techniques and the characteristics and distinguishing
features of each process. Together they provide a descriptive basis for studying the subject and
identifying the most important printmaking techniques.
For more information, please contact the publisher Michael Rothe: mail@rothe-drucke.ch
https://www.rothe-drucke.ch/de/landing.html

The Society of Antiquaries of London’s collection of one hundred and seventy historical printing plates, dating from the early eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, has long been a hidden gem. This paper presents the results of a research project initiated in 2022, focusing on the provenance, manufacture and bibliographical use of these plates. It explores the evolution of printing practices and the role of coppersmith stamps, shedding light on production methods and industry connections. The project involved digitising the plates for improved accessibility and preservation and cataloguing efforts to establish standardised guidelines for similar collections. Furthermore, the study uncovers the Society’s historical interest in maintaining and utilising these plates, providing valuable insights into past printing practices and collection management. This research enriches our understanding of the Antiquaries’ holdings through meticulous investigation and documentation and underscores the significance of exploring overlooked aspects of historical collections. It also calls for future research endeavours and collaborations to explore connections within the Society’s collections further and expand our knowledge of printing history. Overall, this study emphasises the importance of preserving and studying printing technology as valuable artefacts that contribute to our understanding of the past.

Essay-like publication (not an exhibition catalogue per se) on the exhibition held at the Spanish National Library "Arte y anatomía en el Renacimiento. Juan Valverde de Amusco y la Historia de la composición del cuerpo humano" (November 2024-March 2025).

A PDF of the book is available for free at the BNE website (see link below)

A world of academic discourse that shares knowledge through word and image frames this Phd thesis in which I explore the relationship between stone lithography and language - ‘language’ being understood here in its widest sense as written text, embodied, vocal and tacit communication, symbolic and excess information, visual image, and the means through which thought becomes manifest and subjectivity is expressed. At the core of the inquiry is the artisanal practice of stone lithography: a technology that led the development of printed communications in the nineteenth century as both a method of mass communication, and an emerging artists’ technique. Invented by the Bavarian playwright Alois Senefelder (1771-1834), stone lithography had a significant impact on the world of music publishing, and I draw on this lyrical inheritance of song, dance and spoken word. I also draw on the dark legacies of colonialism that laid the ground for the development of lithography in the Age of Empire. In the light of these historic contexts, my own studio practice, and a transdisciplinary field of knowledge, this collection of texts explores the multi-modal breadth of lithographic language making and demonstrates the heterogenous nature of the languages engendered by the practices of stone lithography.

In this essay, I argue that Raphael’s double portrait of Agostino Beazzano and Andrea Navagero formed the painter’s fullest response—made in purely pictorial terms—to Renaissance prosody as it was then being developed by his friends, especially the portraits’ sitters and Pietro Bembo. The drafts of Raphael’s own sonnets on drawings made while he was painting the Stanza della Segnatura are visualizations of the intellectual labor his poetic compositions entailed. A close looking at their placement across the paper on these “ekphrastic sheets” (to use Francesco Di Teodoro’s term) as well as changes in the sonnets’ texts offer tools for understanding the double portrait of Raphael’s poet-friends. Raphael’s often dismissed efforts at poetry made on these study drawings thus blossomed half a decade later in the contribution to Renaissance literary theory he made as a painter.

Today, the term 'state' is used to distinguish between two impressions made from the same copper plate that show differences due to modifications made in the meantime by the engraver. This article aims to show how these differences gradually gained value among collectors. While they may have initially sparked curiosity and amazement, it was primarily the set of meanings attributed to them during the 18th century that determined their success. In parallel, the emergence of catalogues raisonnés further encouraged the identification and search for different states, thus helping to establish their meaning and formalize the way they were described.

Though Douglas Huebler is most well-known for his photo-conceptualist works, this article explores how the artist innovatively employed another medium: the limited-edition print. While early chroniclers of Conceptual art often emphasized the artworks’ resistance to being bought and sold, I argue that Huebler created limited editions intended specifically for the collector’s market, using the medium as a conceptual tool to reshape the relationship between artist and collector. The structure of the limited edition both prompted Huebler to conceive of art collecting as a collective endeavor, with each owner of the edition a node in an interconnected network, and endowed the artist with the ability to authorize impressions as authentic and inauthentic. In a moment when works of art were increasingly treated as financial assets, the limited-edition print provided Huebler with a vehicle for questioning the nature of ownership, authorship, and value.