1545
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Capital and Base of a Column is a 1545 ink by Sebald Beham, a Renaissance work, depicting Column, held at National Gallery of Art.
This engraving shows a column’s base and capital side by side. The lines are razor thin and packed with tiny cross-hatches that make shadows pop. You can see the artist’s tool marks under a magnifier. It’s one of the few surviving prints where Sebald Beham focused on pure architectural studies instead of people or stories. The work looks almost like a textbook diagram, but in reverse: light stays on the edges, dark fills the hollows. Look up engraving and cross-hatching to see how the same technique lifts paper to look like metal.
Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings.
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