Daniel Hopfer was an armourer (a maker of arms and armour) in Augsburg, Germany. Etching was one of the techniques used by armourers to decorate their manufactures. Hopfer is thought to have beeen one of the first craftsmen to print an etched plate on to paper. The earliest etching plates were made of materials with which armourers were familiar, such as steel, as here, or iron. By the time this etching plate was acquired by the V&A in 1910, someone had cut it down slightly from its original size.