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| Ugo da Carpi after Raphael David slaying Goliath (after a fresco in the Raphael Loggia at the Vatican) before 1532 chiaroscuro woodcut Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Ugo da Carpi after Raphael Descent from the Cross (after a lost drawing by Raphael) ca. 1515-23 chiaroscuro woodcut Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Niccolò Vicentino after Raphael The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (after a drawing by Raphael for tapestry cartoon) ca. 1540 chiaroscuro woodcut Royal Collection, Great Britain |
"The chiaroscuro woodcut held a quite exceptional position in this period [mid-16th through early-17th centuries]. It was one of the few printmaking techniques that Vasari described at any length in his Vite. It involved the use of multiple blocks for a single image. The first to be cut, the block with the contour lines, would be made as a normal woodcut. A newly printed impression from that first block would then be used to transfer the outline on to the surface of another block, so that the areas of highlight could be designed in relation to it. One or two further blocks with intermediate tones were quite commonly employed as well. Printed was a complex procedure requiring the careful registration of the blocks. The effect of the lines and areas of tone, with highlights from the white of the paper, was similar to drawings done in pen, ink and wash with white heightening."
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| Andrea Schiavone Bacchic Revel with Silenus riding a Goat ca. 1540-43 etching Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Luca Cambiaso Death of Adonis ca. 1570 woodcut with bistre washes applied by hand Minneapolis Museum of Art |
"There does seem to have been an increasing interest in and attention paid to printmaking in the second half of the sixteenth century. Symptomatic is the fact that in the second, 1568, edition of his Lives Vasari introduced an extended discussion of prints and printmakers. Vasari set out the criteria by which the quality of prints might be judged, drew up a canon of the best printmakers, and provided a historical framework that allowed them to be placed in some sort of chronological order. He also described the immense range of subject matter and all the useful information being made available through prints, even if the poor quality of some of the material worried him."
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| Cesare Vecellio Portrait of Henri III 1574 hand-colored woodcut (from the Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Rome) Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Antonio Tempesta Equestrian Statue of Henri II by Daniele da Volterra in Palazzo Rucellai, Rome ca. 1600-1608 etching (from the Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Rome) Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Palma il Giovane Incredulity of Thomas 1611 etching Philadelphia Museum of Art |
"In 1632 Roberto Canonici, a Ferrarese gentleman and collector, in the course of compiling the inventory of his collection, described a book of prints that he had put together. Looking back from 1632 to the period in the later sixteenth century when he was actively collecting, he wrote of the high regard in which prints had been held and the high prices they had commanded. This had all begun to change, he wrote, with the accession of Paul V (1605); everyone then became interested in paintings, the prices of which increased hugely, while prints ceased to be so sought after."
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| Elisabetta Sirani Beheading of St John the Baptist 1657 etching and engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Elisabetta Sirani after Giovanni Andrea Sirani Holy Family with the Infant St John the Baptist and St Elizabeth ca. 1657-60 etching Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation) |
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| Pier Francesco Mola Joseph making himself known to his Brethren (after Mola's fresco in Palazzo Quirinale, Rome) ca. 1657 etching Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Pier Francesco Mola after Alessandro Tiarini Woman in a Landscape (based on a painting by Titian) before 1666 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Guido Cagnacci Samson slaying the Philistines before 1663 etching British Museum |
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| Guglielmo Cortese after Jacopo Tintoretto Raising of Lazarus (based on a painting by Tintoretto) before 1679 etching British Museum |
– quoted passages by Michael Bury from The Print in Italy, 1550-1620 (British Museum Press, 2001)