When Peter Parshall authored his standard work, The Renaissance Print, 1470–1550 (with David Landau; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), critical readers noted one significant omission: the earliest century of woodcuts before the generation of Albrecht Dürer. Perhaps it was because those works offered stark outlines and relatively little interior modeling, though they frequently were also colored to enhance their naturalism. Now the missing link has been forged. Drawing from extraordinary holdings of this material in their respective museums, Parshall and Schoch provide the first real study of early woodcuts since Arthur Hind in 1935 (though Richard Field, who contributes entries and an important essay to Origins of European Printmaking, catalogued the Washington works in 1965). Visitors to the National Gallery will find many treats, including two large blocks, carved on both sides for additional printing (nos. 4–6). That first room also contains other relief impressions from molds and stamps (no. 1), including papier-mâché, clay, and tin. Often forgotten is how stamps fashion the surfaces of leather for book covers (no. 3). Even specialists will be fascinated by the range of technical variations: the complicated flock print, essentially a kind of velveted paper with incised contours (no. 11); paste prints,...