The work
Wassily Kandinsky (Moscow 1866 – Neuilly-sur-Seine 1944), Farbstudie – Quadrate mit konzentrischen Ringen (Colour Study: Squares with Concentric Circles), 1913. Watercolour, gouache and chalk on paper, 23.9 × 31.5 cm. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Gabriele Münter Stiftung 1957, inventory number GMS 446; donated in 1957.
The source file
A 300 dpi TIFF supplied by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus under reproduction permission 083-26, granted to Digiboo GmbH – Museartis for the reproduction of this work as an art print. The delivered file measures 7093 × 5315 pixels. The museum also shows the work in its online collection under CC0 1.0, but only at 800 pixels — far too small to print, which is why the licensed file was obtained.
Measurement
The photograph shows the whole sheet on a grey studio ground, with the museum reference labels and a grey scale lying below it. The crop is taken at the outer edge of the sheet on all four sides — the envelope of the measured edge, so that no paper is cut away. Measured natively, edge by edge: left 502, top 246, right 6095, bottom 4497 pixels (convention [x0, y0, x1, y1]), which gives a sheet of 5593 × 4251 pixels, ratio 1.3157 against the catalogued 1.3180.
Anchor: 5593 pixels over the catalogued width of 31.5 cm gives 177.6 px/cm, 4251 pixels over 23.9 cm gives 177.9 px/cm. The two axes agree to 0.2 per cent, inside our tolerance of 0.5. Working anchor 177.7 px/cm, that is 451 dpi at 1:1.
Because the crop follows the envelope, a narrow strip of the grey studio ground stays in the print along parts of the edge — at most about 2 mm measured on the original. The sheet also sits about 0.3 degrees off square in the photograph. We do not straighten it: a rotation has to be paid for with an inward crop, and there is no second reproduction of this sheet from another collection against which the tilt could be shown to belong to the photograph rather than to the object. It is measured and named here instead.
The two sheets
40 × 30 cm: the picture prints 33.60 × 25.55 cm, 1.07× the original, 423 dpi; margins 3.20 cm at the sides, 2.07 above, 2.39 below (optical centre, 1 : 1.15).
50 × 40 cm: the picture prints 42.00 × 31.94 cm, 1.33× the original, 338 dpi; margins 4.00 cm at the sides, 3.76 above, 4.32 below.
Both print files are built at 300 dpi from the full-resolution source, 4724 × 3543 and 5906 × 4724 pixels.
What we are allowed to sell
Two layers, as always. The work: Kandinsky died on 13 December 1944, so it has been in the public domain in Switzerland, the EU and the UK since 1 January 2015. For the United States the sheet was made before 1978 and not published before then, so 17 U.S.C. 303(a) applies and it has been free there since 1 January 2003. The reproduction: the museum publishes its own digitisation under CC0 1.0, and a photograph of a flat original carries no separate right in any of our markets in any case.
On top of that, this edition rests on reproduction permission 083-26 of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, issued to Digiboo GmbH – Museartis. It covers an edition of 200 impressions, and we count them. The museum is named as the source of the file, never as a partner or endorser.
Credit line
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Gabriele Münter Stiftung 1957.