Arms of Ravensburg

Watermark. A design worked in wire into the papermaking mould, visible as a thinner, brighter area when the sheet is held to the light. Because papermakers' moulds were in use for limited periods, an identified watermark can narrow the years in which a sheet of paper — and therefore an impression printed on it — was made.

For this mark the census carries 1 transcription:

• Arms of Ravensburg (variant C.a.) - fragments with battlements appearing as two towers with gate between, on a console — National Gallery of Victoria, 19-4

Every one of those records describes a fragment rather than a whole mark. A watermark sits in one part of a full sheet of papermaking paper, and a print sheet is a cut-down piece of one, so a partial mark is often all there is to work from — see trimmed in the glossary.

No record of this mark on an impression of this plate cites a Hinterding variant, so there is no published variant designation to transcribe and none is supplied. A name without a variant does not narrow a date.

It would date the paper, and only the paper. A watermark identified to a mould gives the years that mould was in use. It does not give the year the plate was printed: paper can be stored, and a plate can be printed decades after the sheet was made. Anything stronger than a bound would be an overclaim.

It would not by itself settle the state. The catalogue names this mark among the papers of state II. That is a statement about the impressions the catalogue examined, not a rule about every impression — and since the catalogue records no papers at all for states III and IV, there is nothing to compare against on that side. A mark from an earlier state’s list would be a fact worth having and would not close the question.

The state attribution would still be unconfirmed. The record’s position on this sheet is unchanged by anything on this page: it is catalogued by the auction house as New Hollstein 170, state III of IV; state II is not excluded; the work visible in state III is not Rembrandt’s; and the date this sheet was printed is unknown. The determination that would move it is a specialist reading the line-work against the catalogue’s diagnostic features, not a watermark.

And it would have to be recorded first. Photography with the light source behind the sheet rather than in front of it, so the paper's own structure — laid lines, chain lines, watermarks, thinning, repairs — becomes visible. It is the standard way to record a watermark, and it requires a conservator's judgement about handling. That imaging has not been done, and it is sequenced after a conservator has looked at the sheet’s current housing.