Dating prints by wear analysis

A molecular biologist has borrowed a technique from genetic science to date hand-printed art. The so-called print clock method, developed by Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University, could help historians and collectors pinpoint when thousands of undated, hand-printed materials were created.

Hedges, who does field work in the Carribbean and happens to collect old maps of the area, conceived of the method after noticing that later editions of the same maps had more line breaks. The flaws exist because printmakers often used the same wood blocks and metal plates for decades and those components deteriorated over time.

What the article doesn't note is that while tracing the deterioration of printing plates may allow one to estimate the number of impressions made (itself a very useful contribution), it is rather less useful in dating any given state of the plates. The problem is that plates weren't always in continuous use; in the case of art prints, this can be irregular in the extreme -- decades or even centuries passing between print runs. Perhaps map production kept a steadier pace over time, however.

Posted by David on June 21, 2006 10:14 PM