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A woodcut showing the Emperor Maximilian in a triumphal chariot.
This large woodcut, over 2 metres in length, was originally planned as part of a huge printed frieze. The work, undertaken by a team of designers and woodblock cutters, was to show a triumph
Highlights from the print collection

An introduction to the print collection of the Royal Collection

PRINCE RUPERT OF THE RHINE (1619-82)

The 'Great Executioner'

1658

RCIN 503058

Prince Rupert was a nephew of Charles I and served as a commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War. He was also a scientist and a pioneer of mezzotint, a technique that he learned while in exile during the Interregnum, probably from its inventor Ludwig von Siegen. Rupert produced at least fifteen mezzotints, of which the Great Executioner is the most ambitious, based ultimately on a painting of the beheading of the Baptist by Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto, hence the inscription Sp. In[venit].). Rupert’s reduced version of this print, bound in to John Evelyn's Sculptura of 1662, was the first mezzotint published in England.


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