Dr. Tobias Capwell FSA

 It is difficult to overstate the importance of the process of printing with etched metal plates to the history of European art.

From the sixteenth century onwards, ‘acid-etching’ enabled works of visual art to be disseminated on a scale previously undreamt of. The enduring celebrity of many great masters, including Dürer, Rembrandt and Piranesi, was established in part through their use of this innovative ‘mass-media’ process, which allowed their work to proliferate throughout the world.

Remarkably however, it appears that the invention of this ground-breaking process was a side-effect of another art-form entirely – that of the Renaissance armourer.

Join historian and armour expert Toby Capwell as he explores the surprising origins of a now familiar printing method.