File:Prague Haggadah cup.jpg

English: Illustration that appear in the Prague 1526 Haggadah. It shows incorrectly the wine glass in the left hand and not the right. Additionally, it show the holder grasping the glass at the stem and not at with his fingers cupping the bottom of the glass. Regarding the first issue, that of left handedness, this anomaly may be attributed to the fact that this was the first completely illustrated woodcut haggadah. And, as it was the first, it was not necessarily perfectly executed. The left handedness may also have technical reasons. A woodcut when inked and put on paper produces a mirror image of whatever the woodcut depicts. Thus, if the woodcut was of a right hand, when pressed on paper would produce a left handed image. Additionally, when copies were made, the copyist were not careful and would reverse the images. That is, they were working off the printed image and would copy it directly rather than accounting for reversing the image to ensure that when it was used it would produce the same and not a mirror image. So, as has been explained, during the early history of woodcuts “copies [of woodcuts] were constantly being made, with or without leave, for copyright hardly existed, and the same printer would often have to replace worn cuts by new blocks in successive editions. It is not always an easy task to distinguish copy from original. Immediately recognizable as from different blocks are subjects which appear in reverse directions, for the copyist who does not take the trouble to reverse his drawing from the original print, will make a block that will print the subject reversed.” We can now explain why the images are left handed, presumably, they were copied and the woodcutter was not careful to reverse the image, thus producing a left handed image.