The Armour Archive

Just testing the waters here to see if anyone is interested in very high quality facsimiles of prints by Albrecht Durer or work of other artists from period.
Out of personal interest and for research I've been scouring the internet for good high resolution copies of period art... out of curiosity I printed a couple on my printer (Epson Pro Stylus 9900 if anyone is curious) where I work and was impressed with the results... so I've started going through my collection and pulling some of my favorites and some that I think other people might like and doing true-to-original-size (or as close as I can get) prints on Epson's "fine art" paper. Just resizing the images to original size doesn't quite cut it... I square them up, as it is evident that over the years the paper on some have warped; brighten the white's to match the paper I'm printing on; digitally fix tears and damage that was on the original and are now part of my digital printing plate... I also add about an inch and a half (or use paper that is standard sizes for framing/matting) plain paper border around the edge with faux deckled edges, and am working on a way to fake a plate impression for pieces that were originally engravings. If there is enough interest I will be able to offer these on a higher quality cotton rag paper.

Here are links to what I have left of the last bunch I printed:
Albrecht Durer Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Print size is roughly 11.25" x 15.5", paper is 14" x 18", $35

Albrecht Durer Knight, Death, and the Devil
Print size is roughly 7.25" x 9.5", paper is 10" x 13", $20

Albrecht Durer St Jerome in His Study
Print size is roughly 7.25" x 9.5", paper is 10" x 13", $20

Albrecht Durer Meloncholia I
Print size is roughly 7.25" x 9.5", paper is 10" x 13", $20

Albrecht Durer St Eustace/Hubert
Print size is roughly 10" x 14", paper is 12" x 16", $30

These $5 ones are small, the prints are a about the size of a tarot card... I'll measure them when I'm in the house later.
Albrecht Durer The Bagpiper
paper is 5"x7", $5

Albrecht Durer Peasant Couple Dancing
paper is 5"x7", $5

Albrecht Durer Death and the Landsknecht
paper is 5"x7", $5

Albrecht Durer Three Peasants in Conversation
paper is 5"x7", $5

Hans Burgkmair Weisskunig - The Battle Near Naples
Print size is roughly 7.75" x 8.75", paper is 11" x 12", $15

I'll also give special deal on sets of some of these:
"Knight, Death, and the Devil", "Meloncholia I", and "St Jerome in his Study" - all three for $45
"The Bagpiper" and "Peasant Couple Dancing" together for $8.

I only have 1 each left of the larger prints, except "knight, Death, and the Devil" of which I have 2, and a couple left of each of the smaller prints.

I might also offer some of these in larger than original size if there is enough interest (how large would depend on how big I can enlarge the image before it stops looking good)

I should also mention that these prints are suitable for hand coloring with dry or wet media.

Also, if there is anything specific (any public domain historical art) that someone wants printed I can do it and ship it out in a tube...

I'll get pictures of some of these sometime next week when I'm not getting ready for an event... and if anyone is curious about these prints and will be at Great North Eastern War I will have some there.

Knight, Death and the Devil...how big?

Paladin74 wrote:Knight, Death and the Devil...how big?

On the one I have available now, the size of the print about 7 5/16" x 9 9/16", which is about the same size as the original. The sheet of paper it is printed is 11"x14". The one has the faux deckled edge so it looks like hand laid paper. I didn't have time to figure out the imitation plate impression (engravings are printed at pretty high pressure on dampened paper which causes the outline of the printing plate to be embossed into the paper) so the two I have left don't have that detail. Price on this batch of that print is $20 each plus shipping.

If you want it larger, this is one I plan on seeing how much I can enlarge it.

I have more stuff in the works... I've been messing around with Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, isolating some of the scenes into little pictures of their own; and digitally cleaning up a very high resolution copy of Bruegel the Elder's Triumph of Death.

woodwose wrote:

Paladin74 wrote:Knight, Death and the Devil...how big?

On the one I have available now, the size of the print about 7 5/16" x 9 9/16", which is about the same size as the original. The sheet of paper it is printed is 11"x14". The one has the faux deckled edge so it looks like hand laid paper. I didn't have time to figure out the imitation plate impression (engravings are printed at pretty high pressure on dampened paper which causes the outline of the printing plate to be embossed into the paper) so the two I have left don't have that detail. Price on this batch of that print is $20 each plus shipping.

If you want it larger, this is one I plan on seeing how much I can enlarge it.

How much larger? I'd want it for a wall in the man cave.

How much wall space do you have for it? I did not bother trying to enlarge it too a size larger than I can print, but I can print up to 43.5" by whatever length of paper I have on a roll... I would have to run a test print to be certain, but in photoshop it still looked great at 43.5"x57". The largest media I have of that size would be a matte finish photo paper or satin finish canvas... largest size stretched canvas I can do is 39". 43.5" would leave about 1/4" border around the picture which should be enough for framing. My curiosity is up enough that even if you don't need that size I'll probably do a couple test prints tomorrow during my lunch break.

I did some test prints with it scaled to various sizes.
The largest I can print it is 43.5" x 57". At that size it looks okay from the distance most people would view it at, but getting up close you can see that the lines are a bit pixelated - fine quality of line is sacrificed in favor of making an image in which details can be seen from across the room... of course, as the image size scales down details are less visible from afar while overall image quality improves.

A good balance between image quality vs. visibility seems to be around 35" x 46" to 27" x 35.5". Something in that size range would make for a nice poster that looks good from far away as well as up close... still a little pixelated, but I'm pretty picky about print quality and I'd put those sizes on my wall. I can print that range of sizes on matte or satin finish photo paper, or on canvas (see above post for max canvas size)

So those are what I would consider poster quality prints... scaled to around 20" x 26.25" the quality is closer to what I would call a fine art print. The image quality, crispness of line, etc.. is closer to what it looked like when printed at original size, just bigger overall... If I decide to do a run of enlarged prints of Durer's Knight, Death, and the Devil then this is the size I would probably choose. For this size I prefer to use the hot or cold press fine art paper, but could also print it matte/satin photo paper which would be more budget friendly. I would not recommend canvas for this size because the texture of the canvas would not work well with the fine lines.

I have some prices figured up for various sizes, but will have to wait until I'm home from work to post them.

I am thinking 32" in height, maybe 20" in width? I like the idea of it being on canvas.

32" high scales to just over 24" wide. I've done a test print on canvas with the image scaled to that size and it looked good.
We have a few options with printed canvas, with the cost for 32"x24" next to it.

I can print it and ship the canvas un-stretched (it will have enough extra canvas around the image so it can be stretched), rolled up in a shipping tube - $95 plus shipping

Standard stretch: this is where the canvas is stapled on the sides, intended to be put in a frame: $175 plus shipping

Gallery wrap: used on canvas that is intended to hang without a frame, the canvas is wrapped around the stretcher frame and stapled on the back. These seem to be pretty popular because they are sort of modern/minimalist looking, and very affordable considering that you dodge the cost of framing (easily two or three times the cost of the print). Includes hanging hardware. These are the ones that often have the picture on the canvas wrapping all the way around the sides of it, or sometimes the sides will be left white or made black or some other color... I can make the edges a solid color, or do the image wrap thing - for this one I'd go with a mirror wrap - which takes outer two inches of the picture and mirror images them onto what will be the edges of the stretched canvas... usually when you see canvas done like this it is easy to tell that the edges are just copied and flipped from the edge of the picture, but I use some Photoshop wizardry to make the edges look more like they were supposed to be there... Those options all cost the same:
stretched on 3/4" frame is $200 +shipping; or on 1.5" frame for $225 + shipping.

also, here are the prices I have for the two other sizes close to 32x24" (sizes are the size of the actual print, prints on fine art paper usually have a 1.5" unprinted border around the print):
26.5x20" - on cold press fine art paper is $63; matte finish paper is $43; satin finish is $43
35x27" - not available on fine art paper right now; matte finish is $70; satin finish is $78