Methods to Limit the Supply of a Print.
We digress to the art business. To maintain the price, dealers want only a limited number of print copies to be made. The artist, who also wants to maintain the price, makes a definitely stated and limited number of prints and assigns a number to each copy printed. So a particular print might be labeled as 7 / 50, which means it is the seventh copy out of a limited edition of 50. How do you feel about the practice of limiting an edition, or reopening an edition, or the size of the edition?
By the way, we are talking about prints made directly from the artist's block or plate, not photographic prints made later by commercial companies.
In regard to cancelled blocks, I want to tell you about an experience of mine. A number of years ago, I was at the small but fine Bruce Museum in Greenwich Connecticut. In the somewhat subdued, controlled light, I saw a beautiful print by the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher. The print was appropriately named -- Depth.
Nearby, on display, was the beautifully incised wood block that was used to make the print. I was impressed by, perhaps in love with, the block's exquisite detail.
To my surprise the block had been cancelled. That is printer’s jargon meaning the block was defaced so that no more proper prints can be made. In this case a large circular hole about two inches in diameter had been cut through the wood block,
Defacing the block is done ‒ in a demonstrable way ‒ to prevent further copies from being made and to signal that no more copies are intended to be made.
P.S. If I were the artist, I would be tempted to save the plug of wood from the hole to be able to put it back in at sometime. To get up to date, a 3-D printer could be used to copy the original printing block to be able to recreate it. I wonder if cancellation is a custom without a legal framework, or if you could be sued if you un-cancelled a print.
Further, I can conceive of a test to measure the greed and acquisitiveness of the art market in general and especially the buyers of the prints. The artist or his estate could refuse to deface the block, but promise to not make more copies for a period of twenty or fifty or even a hundred years. How would that affect the price now?
Seeing defacement of something beautiful ‒ in the name of commerce ‒ made a lasting impression on me. I felt that I was at a crime scene looking at the poor victim.
Cancelled Block for Sale
As saving grace of sorts, a cancelled wood block can be sold as a unique work of art. See the small, 3.5 by 5.4 cm, block by Clare Leighton, offered in London at a cost of 525 pounds. Notice, the hole is at a bend in the road, not through a bird. Did the person who drilled the hole show some compassion?
Would you like to own such a block? What would you do with it? How would you display it? Would you make prints from it? Do you think it could be repaired? If it were repaired, would its value go up or down? Think how that would affect its provenance. Perhaps you could have things both ways by making a plug that could be put in or removed at will? Could a 3D printer make a larger copy that could be printed from?
Even when a printing block or plate is not defaced, it can show its age. The block slowly wears down. The sharpness and definition of details is reduced as hundreds or even thousands of prints are made. A demonstration of print wear can be seen in Amsterdam at Rembrandt’s House which is now a museum. The museum staff have on hand, a genuine, original, much used, Rembrandt printing plate. For a modest price, they will make a print for you, from that worn plate, as you watch.
Now we can engage in some technological speculation which may be attainable. You know how old sound recordings from physical records can be digitally remastered to remove the static and make other improvements. A 3D printer likely makes a digital copy of an object before printing a physical copy. The digital copy could be worked on and improved before printing. We already know that print shop can clean up and sharpen images, so all the techniques seem to be available.
In fact, we could go one step further and make the print directly from the manipulated - improved digital image. Best of all, there probably exist prints made from the worn plate when it was new, hundreds of years ago. We could compare that print against our technically "remastered" copies.
Or, much simpler, just make superb photocopies of the old print on fine quality printing paper. The copy could look good but lack the embossing of the original from the pressure applied by the press.
A Rembrandt Print with Some Abstract Qualities
Not from the worn museum plates, see Rembrandt's landscape print -- Three Trees. Note, the three trees together, and the massed dark and light areas begin to take on a graphic abstract quality.
