Posted by Jan Andersson on December 19, 2001 at 06:14:08:
Sorry to hog the board, but here's one more: I recently saw an auction for Yoshitoshi's moon prints that stressed strongly that some of the prints were not backed and NOT from an album. Does this necessarily mean that they are older impressions, or somehow better than impressions for an album? How soon after the first edition did they begin to make albums?
A related question: it seems some albums were made by print collectors putting their favorite pieces in a book form for preservation, much like we would make a scrapbook. Other albums seem to be produced by the publishers, with complete sets of a series. Do these 2 types of albums differ substantially in form and technique? Do the prints made for albums differ from those made for distribution as single sheets? Who put the backing on for these "published album" prints, and at what stage of the process? If a print bleeds through even the backing, does this suggest that the backing was already on at the time of printing? Wouldn't this affect printing if this were the case?
Many questions! Happy holidays!