4591B

Speciosvs Forma P[r]ae Filiis Hominvm (Psalms 45:2)

Artist: Workshop of Antonio Ricardo (ca. 1540 - 1605/1606)
Title: Speciosvs Forma P[r]ae Filiis Hominvm (Psalms 45:2)
Date: 1584
Medium: Woodcut (75mm x 75mm). Illustration to folio 73v of Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo […] Compuesto por auctoridad del Concilio Prouincial, que se celebro en la Ciudad de los Reyes el año de 1583[.] Impresso en la Ciudad de los Reyes por Antonio Ricardo, primero impressor en estos Reynos del Piru. Año de MDLXXXIIII.
Location: Antigua Imprenta de Antonio Ricardo, Lima, Perú.
Photo Source: Biblioteca, Museo Bartolomé Mitre, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Correspondence Credit: Ricardo Estabridis and Almerindo Ojeda
Note 1: Like the Ocharte woodcut (4591A), the Ricardo woodcut lacks the R in PRÆ. Said R has been added, however, to other impressions in order to correct the spelling mistake. In the impression of the John Carter Brown Library —which we have not been able to examine directly— this R indeed seems to have been drawn in, as Emily Floyd originally suggested to us. But in the impression at the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, which we did examine directly, the R seems to have been relief-printed on the impression, possibly with a metal type. I am led to this because (a) the shape of this R differs from that of the one printed elsewhere in the text (i.e. the R in FORMA), (b) its inking leaves a clear core rather than printing solid black (as one would see in a pen-and-ink drawing or in the other woodcut letters of the text), (c) it is misaligned vis-à-vis the other letters of the word, and (d) there are no signs of embedding a new R-block within the original woodblock.
Note 2: Ricardo arrived in Mexico City in 1570. In 1577 he formed an association with Pedro Ocharte. The society functioned under the aegis of the Jesuits at the Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo, but this association was dissolved by 1580, when he traveled to Lima with typographical material he acquired from Ocharte. Between 1570 and 1579, he participated in the production of ten works in Mexico.
Item: 4591B

Correspondences: Archive: 4591A/4591B; Archive: 4591A/4591B; 4591A/4591B