Landscape with the Town on a River and the Cottage between Trees

1551

Hanns Lautensack

(German, 1524–1566)

Culture

Germany

Medium

etching

Measurements

Image: 17 x 23 cm (6 11/16 x 9 1/16 in.); Sheet: 17 x 23 cm (6 11/16 x 9 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Dudley P. Allen Fund 1938.386

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

The vertical break in the center of this composition indicates where two different plates were used and then printed together on the same sheet of paper.

Description

In this work, Hanns Lautensack used two etching plates and printed them side by side on one sheet of paper, though the reason for this is not clear. The print also displays a printing error, namely the presence of “foul biting,” small dots in the sky that indicate failure of the acid-resistant ground. Such mistakes, or experimentations, were not unusual in the early decades of the development of the etching medium, when artists were still refining their formulas and procedures. Happily, perhaps, the errors abide well with the naturalistic landscape scene.