It is difficult to overstate the importance of the process of printing with etched metal plates to the history of European art.

From the sixteenth century onwards, ‘acid-etching’ enabled works of visual art to be disseminated on a scale previously undreamt of. The enduring celebrity of many great masters, including Dürer, Rembrandt and Piranesi, was established in part through their use of this innovative ‘mass-media’ process, which allowed their work to proliferate throughout the world.

Remarkably however, it appears that the invention of this ground-breaking process was a side-effect of another art-form entirely – that of the Renaissance armourer.

Join historian and armour expert Toby Capwell as he explores the surprising origins of a now familiar printing method.