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Updated: May 21, 2025
Since the beginning of the year the study of painting had become predominant, and had necessitated rather a heavy outlay, because Gilbert's schemes were always so elaborate and complex drawing-boards of different sizes, every one of them with a tin cover painted and varnished; some for water-colors, others for charcoals; canvases for oils and monochromes, wooden and porcelain palettes, pastilles, tubes, portable easels, sunshades, knapsacks, stools, brushes, block-books, papers for water-colors and chalk studies, tinted and white, numberless portfolios to class the studies, and a gig, to carry the paraphernalia to greater distances and in less time than the four-wheeled carriage required.
There is reason to suppose that playing-cards, from wooden blocks, were produced at Venice long before the block-books, even as early as 1250; but there is no positive evidence that they were printed; and some insist that they were produced either by friction or stencil-plates.
One thing seems pretty clear, which is, that, whether or not Koster was the printer, the first block-books were produced somewhere in Holland, as several are in Dutch, a language seldom, if ever, printed out of its own country.
It was in fact this increase of demand for books, pamphlets, or fly-sheets, especially of a grammatical or religious character, in the middle of the fifteenth century that brought about the introduction of printing. We meet with the first records of the printer's art in rude sheets struck off from wooden blocks, "block-books" as they are now called.
Not only were Hans Memling the greatest master of the next generation in Belgium and his own son, also named Roger, his pupils, but innumerable works other than pictures were produced, such as miniatures, block-books, and engravings, in which his form of art is recognisable.
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