| CRATANDER’S MARK. (Attributed to Holbein.) |
| T. COX. |
To attempt to identify the designers of even a selection of the best Printers’ Marks would be but to embark on a wild sea of conjecture. The initials of the engravers, which occur much more frequently than those of the artists, are of very little assistance to the identification of the latter. Many of them possess a vigour and an originality which would at once stamp their designers as men of more than ordinary ability. For picturesqueness, and for the care and attention paid to the minutest details, it may be doubted if either B. Picart in France, or J. Pine in this country, has ever been excelled. The examples of the former come perhaps more in the category of vignettes than of Printers’ Marks, although the charming little pictures on the title-pages of Stosch’s “Pierres Antiques Gravées,” 1724, the “Impostures Innocentes,” 1734, and the edition of Cicero’s “Epistolæ,” printed at the Hague by Isaac Vaillant, 1725,—to mention only three of many—may be conveniently regarded as Printers’ Marks. So far as we know, Pine only executed one example,—representing a Lamb within a cleverly designed cartouche—and this appears on the title-page of Dale’s Translation of Freind’s “Emmenologia,” printed for T. Cox, “at the Lamb under the Royal Exchange,” 1729: in its way it is unquestionably the most perfect Mark that has ever been employed in this country. Any rule differentiating the Printer’s Mark proper from a vignette is not likely to give general satisfaction; for a writer on the subject of vignettes will unfailingly appropriate many that are Marks, and vice versa. The present writer has found it a fairly safe rule, to accept as a Mark a pictorial embellishment (on a title-page) to which is appended a motto or quotation. The temptation to persuade oneself that several of these vignettes are Printers’ Marks needs a good deal of resisting, especially when such an exquisite example as that of Daniel Bartholomæus and Son, of Ulm, is in question. The same holds good with several of the dozen used by J. Reinhold Dulssecker, Strassburg, about the latter part of the seventeenth and earlier part of the eighteenth century; and very many others that might be named.
J. R. DULSSECKER.
It is interesting to note that the Printer’s Mark preceded the introduction of the title-page by nearly twenty years, and that the first ornamental title known appeared in the “Calendar” of Regiomontanus, printed at Venice by Pictor, Loeslein and Ratdolt in 1476, in folio. Neither the simple nor the ornate title-page secured an immediate or general popularity, and not for many years was it regarded as an essential feature of a printed volume. Its history is intimately associated with that of the Printer’s Mark, and the progress of the one synchronizes up to a certain point with that of the other. In beauty of design and engraving, the Printer’s Mark, like the Title-page, attained its highest point of artistic excellence in the early part of the sixteenth century. This perhaps is not altogether surprising when it is remembered that during the first twenty years of that period we have title-pages from the hands of Dürer, Holbein, Wechtlin, Urse Graff, Schauffelein and Cranach. In his excellent work entitled “Last Words on the History of the Title-Page,” Mr. A. W. Pollard observes “From 1550 onwards we find beauty in nooks and corners. Here and there over some special book an artist will have laboured, and not in vain; but save for such stray miracles, as decade succeeds decade, good work becomes rarer and rarer, and at last we learn to look only for carelessness, ill-taste, and caricature, and of these are seldom disappointed.” These remarks apply with equal force to the Printer’s Mark, although some exceptionally beautiful examples appeared after that period.
The position allotted to the Printer’s Mark may not be of very great importance, but it offers some points of interest. It appeared first in the colophon, in which the printer usually seized the opportunity not only of thanking God that he had finished his task, but of indulging in a little puff either of his own part of the transaction or of the work itself. The appearance of the Mark in the colophon therefore was a natural corollary of the printer’s vanity. It soon outgrew its place of confinement; and when a pictorial effect was attempted it became promoted, as it were, to the title-page. In this position it was nearly always of a primary character, so to speak, but sometimes, as in the case of Reinhard Beck, it was almost lost in the maze of decorative borders. But it is found in various parts of the printed book: in some cases, among which are the Arabic works issued by Erpenius of Leyden, we find the Mark at what we regard as the beginning of the book, but which in reality is its end. Sometimes the Mark occupies the first and last leaves of a book, as was often the case with the more important works issued by Froben, by the brothers Huguetan and others. These two Marks at the extreme portions of a book either differed from one another or not, according to the fancy or convenience of the printer. The Mark also appeared sometimes at the end of the index, or at the end of the preliminary matter, such as list of contents or address of the author, and its position was generally determined by several circumstances.
REINHARD BECK.