Man with a Book, from: Traité historique et pratique de la gravure en bois

This chiaroscuro woodcut by Jean-Michel Papillon, used to illustrate his Traité historique et pratique de la gravure en bois (Paris, 1766), is a reverse copy of Zanetti's Young Man standing after Parmigianino.
The present decomposition of the print, showing each of the four blocks printed separately and then once all together, demonstrates the complexity of composing a colour image in this way. It shows how the artist dissected the image of the figure into four degrees of shade and light: black for the darkest areas, brown and ochre for shaded and less shaded surfaces, and white for the brightest highlights. The shaded areas have one block each, while the white highlights are cut out of the eggshell-blue tone block and thus remain white.