6238B

The Last Supper

Artist: Workshop of Antonio Ricardo (but only as a printer) (ca. 1540 – 1605/1606)
Title: The Last Supper
Date: 1584
Medium: Woodblock printing. Published on fol. 45r of Doctrina Christiana y Catecismo […] Compuesto por auctoridad del Concilio Prouincial, que se celebro en la Ciudad de los Reyes el año de 1583[.] Impresso en la Ciudad de los Reyes por Antonio Ricardo, primero impressor en estos Reynos del Piru. Año de MDLXXXIIII.
Location: Antigua Imprenta de Antonio Ricardo, Lima, Perú.
Photo Source: John Carter Brown Library / Internet Archive
Correspondence Credit: Almerindo Ojeda
Note: Line-by-line similarites between the images of 6238A and 6238B suggest that both of these woodcuts were printed from one and the same block. This block was printed in Seville by Juan Gutiérrez in 1569. Antonio Ricardo was an Italian typographer who worked in Venice, Lyon, Valladolid, and Medina del Campo. In 1570, Ricardo left Europe and traveled to America to Mexico become one of the first publishers of the New World. It follows that Ricardo could have acquired this woodblock from Juan Gutiérrez in Seville —the required point of departure for the Indies— and brought it along in his transatlantic journey. Ricardo could have then printed this woodblock in Lima, where he relocated in 1580.
Item: 6238B