The Virgin and Child with Crown and Sceptre on a Crescent
c. 1460
Unknown Artist Southern Germany, mid-15th century
Germany
This simple, luminous image of the Madonna and Child must have been printed in hundreds of impressions to justify the time and expense of cutting the block from which it was made. Yet only this one impression survives. Rather than being produced in a press, it was made through hand-rubbing, perhaps by monks or nuns who lacked a book-printing press.
Woodcut printed in dark brown through rubbing, hand-colored in red lacquer, yellow, and green, on cream laid paper