Close-up of hand-colored, historic print

By Molly Mapstone, Class of 2021

I had just left my job in the print room at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison and was missing being around the prints every day. I realized that I wanted to know more about the history of printmaking, print culture, and how prints are made.

I remembered a strange little print tucked away in a remote room on the 8th floor of Winterthur. The print had caught my eye because of its strange colors and other materials on top of the ink. I also wanted to learn more about the imagery of the print. I had seen other prints online that depicted the stages of life but none in the collection I had been working in. I saw this as an opportunity to fill in some of the gaps I had in my education of print history.