Hollstein is a household word to all students of the great Northern European schools of printmaking. It is a universally known standard reference work with a status enjoyed by few other scholarly publications. The name is derived from Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein (1888-1957), a leading dealer in prints and drawings in Berlin before the Second World War. Circumstances forced Hollstein to leave Germany in 1937, at which time he took refuge in Holland and moved to Amsterdam. Like many serious dealers, he assiduously documented the objects in which he was interested. The publisher Menno Hertzberger eventually issued the first volumes based on Hollstein‘s research: dating from 1949 is F.W.H. Hollstein‘s Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, and from 1954 the parallel series German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts ca. 1400-1700. To date, the number of published volumes in these two series total more than one hundred.