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In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the open art market in the Netherlands gave rise to the mass production of devotional art for broad sectors of the public: pipe-clay images of saints made in moulds, lead pilgrim's badges, and woodcuts and engravings printed on paper. Very few examples of the prints have survived, since they are so easily damaged. They would, though, have been produced in large editions, for it is estimated that between two and three hundred impression could be made from a wooden block, and far more from copperplates. For instance, from this engraving of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin some 2650 prints were printed between 1506 and 1514.
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