Wood blocks consist of three pieces of wood glued and nailed together in order that they don’t warp and print evenly. Sizes and shapes vary dramatically and according to the desired final design but most are around 20x30cm and weigh between 1 and 4 kilos. They are made from local Bohemian hard woods such as plum and pear with the top piece being used for printing and the bottom piece used as a handle. The blocks in our collection are from Northern Bohemia and were used for elaborate full color printing on textiles and wallpaper. Experts have dated them from the early 1800’s to the turn of the 20th century.The older forms usually contain no metal except for little nails around the edges which were used to lightly tap the block onto the pre heated (coal) tables with the textile laid out.
The metal forms probably were developed by the 1850’s. The forms are further divided into negative or positive types where first printing of darker colors were done with “negative” forms and ligher, top colors were done with “positive” forms.
