The Earliest German Recipe for Copper Etching

A sixteenth-century recipe book in Nuremberg’s Stadtbibliothek contains instructions for etching stone and various metals, including copper, with a salts-in-vinegar solution. The manuscript attributes the formula to the calligrapher Johann Neudörffer the Elder (1497–1563), who produced the first German copper etchings for his writing manual Gute Ordnung between 1538 and the early 1550s. The survival of Neudörffer’s recipe provides unique insights into ingredients and processes used in the making of a firmly delineated group of prints and sheds new light on the history of sixteenth-century etching.