Definitions
Plate: the metal or stone surface on which a printable image is prepared
Print: a general term for impressions from a specific plate
Impression: an individual piece of paper with the image printed from the plate
State: the plate in a significantly different condition (deliberately or accidentally) from which an impression has been taken.
Catalogue Raisonnée page
The Catalogue currently aims to describe the first state of all prints that Rawlinson described (Rawlinson 1908, 1913), with the progress of states described for a few prints: The Copper-plate magazine series R.001-015A, R.177 Wycliffe, R317a Ehrenbreitstein, and R.779 Scarborough. The prints are listed using his order, numbering and names. A few additional prints have been identified since then and their ordering has followed his precedent, e.g. R.317a, by choosing the appropriate place in the number sequence, then adding a, b etc.
The thumbnail image is usually of an impression of the first published state. Where the print was never published, the latest available state is used. Where no digital image of a first published state is yet available, an image of the next earliest published state is shown.
Clicking on an image provides opens up a list of states currently available for that print.
Print page
The heading image is the same as that used on the Catalogue page.
The Engraver entry is based on Rawlinson’s declared engraver, supplemented by later scholarship.
The Original Publication data are the parts or books where the print was first published as suggested by Rawlinson, ignoring the many “engraver’s proofs” that were sold earlier or in parallel.
The Rawlinson Entry provides a link to a digitised version of his catalogue.
The Additional Background information provides a link to other sources, such as Finberg’s catalogues (Finberg 1924, 1929).
The Changes to States summarises any amendments to Rawlinson’s or other proposed lists.
The list of states is built up from available data and images. Both the identification and naming of states are subjective and shifting. The naming of a state is evolved from Rawlinson’s practice. Pre-publication states are named like: etc (etching); ep (engraver’s proof); epaii (engraver’s proof state a, impressions of which have been later separated into epai, epaii, epaiii). Published states are named in order from first to last like: i (first); xi (replacing Rawlinson’s “G” or “later” designations).
The thumbnail image for a state's impression is derived from the image on the impression’s page.
State page
The heading data is derived from the print page data. The following data relates to the impression specified in the metadata and cannot be assumed to be the same as others of the same nominal state.
The image is a zoomable iiif high resolution image. The source image of the entire sheet has been trimmed to the plate mark.
The Collection and Image data are provided by the owner of the impression.
The Provenance data is derived from information garnered from inscriptions on the sheet, or information from the owner’s records.
The Published data ideally is the book etc in which the impression is still bound. However, many published impressions have been disbound, so this is frequently a best guess. In addition, it is difficult to take photographs from bound impressions that are useful for quantitative comparisons, so disbound impressions are frequently used for imaging. Pre-published impressions have no data of publication.
The Impression details link may refer to an owner’s descriptive page of this impression.
Sizes are given height x width in mm.
The Paper type provides brief information on the paper.
The Title and following fields are transcripts from the impression. The first set (Title to Other printed mark) are of the original printed marks on the sheet. The second set (Inscriptions to Touched) are subsequent marks (hand written or stamped) on the sheet. Comments on these transcripts are in curly brackets {..} and relate usually to the type of script used, though {wal} in the title field indicates no printed lettering is seen on the impression. The symbol ¦ indicates a new line within a title's text.
The reported Position on the sheet is related to the picture position but is a summary. The actual position needs to be checked on the image.