| The Imprimerie Nationale’s Art Book and Print workshop is a unique collection in the world that summarizes the history of the printed book, shows its craft techniques and keeps them alive. It combines, in fact, the exceptional heritage of its collections, the oldest of which dates back to François I, punches, lead type, vignettes, wood and intaglio engravings, gilding irons, totaling nearly 700,000 pieces - the range of crafts that make up the history of printing and its techniques. Creation and rehabilitation of characters, punchcutting, type casting, Latin and foreign typefaces, manual and mechanical composition, typographic printing, lithographic and intaglio printing. All these trades remain active at the printshop and are combined to produce worthy works in the tradition of excellence which has illustrated it since its foundation (1640). |
