A print room is a room in an art gallery or museum where a collection of old master and modern prints, usually together with drawings, watercolours, and photographs, are held and viewed.
British Museum, Prints And Drawings Study Room
The Hundred Guilder Print, c.1647-1649, etching by Rembrandt. Most large print rooms have an example of this print
Drawing of martyrs John and Paul by Guercino, Courtauld Institute, London
Ukiyo-e coloured woodcut by Hokusai
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmaking from the vast range of decorative, utilitarian and popular prints that grew rapidly alongside the artistic print from the 15th century onwards. Fifteenth-century prints are sufficiently rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term.
The Three Crosses, drypoint by Rembrandt, 1653, state III of IV
Melencolia I, 1514, engraving by Albrecht Dürer
This donor portrait of about 1455 shows a large coloured print attached to the wall with sealing wax. Petrus Christus, NGA, Washington.
Anonymous German 15th-century woodcut, about 1480, with hand-colouring, including (unusually) spots of gold. 5.2 x 3.9 cm (similar to the original size on most screens)
