Engraving, in the strictest sense of the word, is the art of scratching or incising marks or figures upon tablets of any hard substance. Certain forms of the art—such as decorative engraving for purely ornamental purposes upon metal, engraved writing upon tablets for the purpose of record, gem-engraving for the production of signets, cameo-engraving, &c.—are of extreme antiquity. But, in its more especial and restricted sense, the word engraving is understood to designate the cutting or incising of designs upon metal plates or blocks of wood, for the purpose of printing impressions from them in ink upon paper, or other similar substance. Engravings of this sort are divided into the two broad classes of engravings on metal, in which the lines to be printed are sunk or incised, and engravings on wood, in which the lines to be printed appear in relief, the wood between them being cut away. In the former the plate, having been inked and wiped on the surface, retains the ink only in its hollowed lines, from which it is conveyed to the paper by the pressure of the printing-press; whereas in the latter only the elevated portion of the surface of the block is inked by means of a roller, and being subjected to the press, it prints as a raised type. [WOOD-ENGRAVING is fully described under its specific heading; here we deal only with Engraving upon Metal.]
The metal most commonly used for engraving has been copper; but during the 19th century steel has been largely employed on account of its hardness, which enables it to resist the wear of printing, and to throw off a far larger number of unimpaired impressions than could possibly be obtained from a copper plate. Steel, however, is less readily engraved upon than copper, and so is apt to yield a less free and artistic result: and, by means of a recent discovery, the surfaces of copper plates can now be protected by an extremely thin coating of steel deposited by galvanic action, which enables them to yield a large number of excellent impressions without being worn. Zinc plates have also been employed to some extent for etchings, especially by Seymour Haden, a very eminent 'painter-etcher,' who likes the 'fat,' picturesque, and varied line which this metal yields when bitten by the acid.
The earliest of the impressions taken from engraved plates are those most valued by connoisseurs, on account of their sharpness, clearness, and richness, qualities which are gradually lost as the surface of the metal becomes worn by repeated printing. The term 'working proofs' indicates trial impressions printed by engravers for their own use, to test the state of their work during its progress. 'Artist's proofs' are those bearing the signature of the painter or engraver, or of both, which is held to guarantee the quality of the impression. 'Proofs before letters' are those thrown off before the printed titling, &c. has been added; and 'open letter proofs' are those in which the letters of the title have been added merely in outline.
THE PROCESSES OF ENGRAVING ON METAL.
Line-engraving.—The chief instrument of the line-engraver is the burin or graver, a small bar of steel, usually in the form of a quadrangular prism, pointed at one end, and with the other fixed in a rounded wooden handle. This instrument is held between the engraver's forefinger and thumb, which direct the motion of the point as it is pushed forward by the pressure of the palm of the hand on the wooden handle, and incises, upon the plate of polished metal placed beneath it, a line proportionate in breadth and depth to the amount of pressure used and the angle at which the point is applied, the metal being lifted clean out of the furrow in a long strip or shaving. In this manner the design is inscribed upon the plate: and, in printing, the plate is inked, its smooth surface is then wiped clean, so as to leave the ink remaining only in the incised lines, from which it is removed to paper by being passed through the printing-press.
Etching.—In this process a polished metal plate is coated with a thin transparent surface or 'ground' impervious to the action of acid. For this purpose a composition of white wax, gum-mastic, and asphaltum is usually employed, inclosed in a ball of silk. When this ball is applied to the heated surface of the plate, the ground melts and exudes through the cloth, and is spread evenly over the metal by means of a pad of cotton-wool covered with silk, termed a 'dabber.' The plate is then exposed to the smoke of wax tapers till it becomes of a uniform black colour, which enables the etched line, disclosing the shining metal, to be visible on its surface. Upon this plate, so prepared, the design is drawn with an 'etching-needle,' a sharp steel point fitted in a handle, and held like a pencil in the artist's hand. This needle removes the impervious ground where it is applied, disclosing lines of the bare metal, which are ready to be acted upon by the acid. The back of the plate having been protected by an application of Brunswick black, it is placed in the 'acid-bath,' a flat tray filled with a mordant, usually composed of nitric acid diluted with an equal volume of water, which attacks and corrodes the metal in the lines that have been exposed to its action by the needle. After sufficient time has been allowed for the palest lines of the subject to be bitten, the plate is removed from the bath; these lines are covered with a 'stopping-out varnish' of Brunswick-black, applied with a brush, which protects them from further action of the acid; and the plate is returned to the bath, which attacks the lines still exposed. This process is repeated as often as necessary to produce the desired variety in depth of the various lines of the design. When the biting is completed, the plate is finally removed from the bath, the 'ground' is cleaned off by means of turpentine, and the design appears incised on the metal. The plate is then inked and printed in a manner similar to that employed in a plate engraved with the burin, those lines which have been longest exposed to the acid printing darkest, as they are the deepest and retain most ink. Much also can be done towards obtaining an artistic result by leaving a small coating of the ink on certain parts of the smooth surface of the plate, this film of ink printing as a delicate tint. If it should be found that the lines are too shallow, the plate may be regrounded by means of a roller charged with the 'ground' being passed over the plate. This coats the level surface with the impervious 'ground,' but leaves the incised lines free, so that they may be again subjected to the action of the acid in the bath.
During recent years various new methods of etching, and modifications of the process described above, have been introduced. These will be found clearly and fully described in P. G. Hamerton's Etcher's Handbook. In particular, a process for drawing the subject while the plate is exposed to the acid has been invented and much employed by Seymour Haden. He prepares the metal plate as above, and places it in a shallow bath filled with a mordant composed of hydrochloric acid, chlorate of potash, and water; and the subject is then drawn with the needle, the lines intended to be darkest being those first laid, so as to be longest exposed to the action of the acid.
It should be noticed that, while the early line-engravers worked with the burin alone, etching is combined with burin-work in most modern line-engravings; the subject being usually sketched with the etching-needle and bitten with acid, and the freer portions of foliage, &c. being also executed in a similar manner. 'Dry-point' is frequently employed in finishing the more delicate portions of line-engravings. The dry-point is an etching-needle sharpened in a particular way, and employed to scratch lines upon the bare metal. Unlike the burin, it does not cut a clean furrow out of the plate, but throws up the metal that it displaces in a ridge or 'bur,' which in printing yields a rich velvety blackness. When employed as an adjunct to line-engraving, this 'bur' is removed with the 'scraper;' and so treated, dry-point yields an extremely delicate line, very useful in finishing line-engravings and etchings. A 'ruling-machine' is also employed in producing the parallel lines representing flat skies in line-engravings.
Soft-ground Etching.—The metal plate is coated with ordinary etching-ground mixed with tallow, and a sheet of thin paper, with a certain degree of grain or texture in it, is stretched over the plate. The design is then drawn upon the upper surface of this paper with a hard black-lead pencil. On the paper being removed, it carries off adhering to its lower surface a portion of the etching-ground where pressure has been applied by the pencil-lines, exposing the metal of the plate, which is then bitten with acid, cleaned, and printed from, in the same manner as an ordinary etching. The impressions yielded by this process resemble a pencil-drawing or a lithograph.
Mezzotint-engraving.—This method differs from all other processes of metal engraving in that, while other engravers work from light to shade, and each line which they draw prints as a dark, the mezzotinter works from dark to light, and each touch which he adds to his plate prints as a light. Mezzotint-plates are prepared by the action of a kind of chisel, termed a 'cradle' or 'rocking-tool,' which passing over its surface roughens it, raising a 'bur' of innumerable small metal points, so that if the plate were then inked and printed it would yield an impression of a uniform black. The engraver, having traced his subject on the plate, proceeds to smooth the surface by removing the 'bur' with a scraper, in proportion as he wishes to introduce light into his design; the bur being left untouched in the darkest shadows, partially removed in the half-lights, and wholly cleaned away in the high lights, in which the surface is perfectly smoothed, and brought to a high polish by means of the 'burnisher.' In modern mezzotint-plates, etching and work in stipple are frequently introduced, in a mistaken effort to obviate that softness and indefiniteness which is a characteristic of this method.
Aquatint-engraving.—In this process the polished metal plate is covered with a solution of resinous gum dissolved in spirits of wine. The spirit evaporates, leaving the resin deposited in minute granulations on the metal surface. The design is then transferred to the metal, and the plate is bitten in a bath of diluted nitrous acid, which corrodes the portions left exposed between the grains of resin. The darkest parts of the design are longest exposed to the action of the mordant, the lighter parts being successively protected by a series of 'stoppings-out,' consisting of oxide of bismuth and turpentine varnish applied with a brush in a manner similar to that employed in the 'stopping-out' of an ordinary etching. The impressions produced resemble those yielded by mezzotint, both processes working by spaces and not by lines.
Chalk or Stipple Engraving.—The metal plate is coated with an ordinary etching-ground, and the subject is drawn upon it by means of a succession of small dots produced by the point of the etching-needle. The plate is then bitten in the usual way with acid, which corrodes the metal at the points uncovered by the needle; and it is afterwards finished by dots, applied with the point of the etching-needle or burn on the bare metal.
Mechanical and Photographic Process.—Engraving in recent times has suffered much from the rivalry of photographic and mechanical substitutes. The most important of these is known as photogravure or heliogravure. The beauty of the work produced by means of this process, in the reproduction of paintings, of drawings in monochrome made for the purpose, and of photographs direct from nature, has raised it to a position in which it bids fair, at no very distant date, to supersede engraving altogether; except in so far as the burin is used to touch up and finish the plates so produced. The processes employed will be described under PHOTOGRAVURE.
A photo-mechanical process which is much used in the reproduction of the plates of the older engravers and etchers, and in the production of intaglio etched plates from pen drawings, has been carried to great perfection, some of the work produced by Amand-Durand of Paris being quite equal to the finest hand etchings. A positive photograph is taken of the drawing or engraving to be reproduced (i.e. the lines are black, the whites clear glass); this is placed over a copper plate coated with a bituminous varnish, and exposed to the light. Where the lines of the photograph have protected the varnish from the light it remains soluble, but where the light has affected it through the glass it becomes insoluble. The varnish may then be dissolved from the lines, and the copper exposed exactly as if the etching-point had been used to make the drawing on an etching-ground. It is then etched in the usual manner, as already described, and finally touched up and improved with the graver.
There are many other mechanical and photographic processes of engraving, especially for the production of relief blocks, but as their connection with engraving is more or less remote, and they are all more or less used for the purposes of book illustration, it will be more convenient to devote a special article to describing such of them as are not well enough known by their distinctive names, to be separately treated. See the article ILLUSTRATION.
HISTORY OF ENGRAVING ON METAL.
Line-engraving.—The practice of engraving metal plates, for the purpose of printing impressions from them with ink upon paper, originated with the early Italian goldsmiths, who in this manner were accustomed to take proofs of the metal objects which they decorated with engraved designs, in order to test the progress of their work; and these nielli (see NIELLO), or decorated plates of metal, in which the hollows were finally to be filled in with a black enamel, are regarded as the earliest engravings. A pax or metal plate used in the Roman ritual to receive the kiss of peace, executed by Maso Finignerra, in 1452, for the church of San Giovanni in Florence, is considered to have been the first metal from which impressions on paper are known to have been taken. This pax is preserved in the Uffizi at Florence, and the only known original impression from it is in the Bibliothèque de Paris. Works of niello, however, were only incidentally used for taking impressions on paper; they were primarily designed as metal decorations, but they supplied the necessary hint as to the possibilities of the process, and led the way to such works as the Kalendar, dated 1465, and ascribed to Baldini (c.1436–c.1480), and the plates in the Monte Santo de Dio (1477) and in an edition of Dante (1481), both of which are ascribed to Baldini and Botticelli (1447–1515), in which we see the beginnings of metal engraving properly so called. Among the other early Italian line-engravers were Antonio del Pollajuolo (1429–98), who executed a few very scarce prints, showing that command of the figure for which he was celebrated as a painter; Robetta (c.1510), whose works are excellent in design, though poor in technique; and Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), whose productions are distinguished by an impressive gravity and by a dignified classical feeling. Most of these engravers were themselves painters, and engraved from their own designs; but in Marc Antonio Raimondi (c.1488–c.1530) we have an engraver in the modern sense, engaged in reproducing the works of other artists. He is mainly known by his noble transcripts of the works of Raphael, in which he was aided by the master himself, who sometimes corrected his outlines upon the copper. Among the modern line-engravers of Italy may be named John Volpato (1730–1803), known chiefly by his 'School of Athens' and other plates after Raphael; Raphael Morghen (1758–1833), whose most famous plate reproduces Leonardo's 'Last Supper,' though a finer work is his rendering of Van Dyck's portrait of Francesco de Moncada; Paul Toschi (1788–1854), celebrated for his transcripts of the frescoes by Correggio at Parma; and Louis Calamatta (1802–69), who worked much after Ingres.
Among the productions of the North we find an example of line-engraving upon metal earlier in date than any afforded by the schools of Italy. This is a 'Flagellation,' forming part of a Passional series, dated 1446, a work attributed to an engraver of Upper Germany. Among the other early German engravers are 'The Master of 1464 or of the Banderoles' and 'The Master of 1466 or of the Initials C. S.' But it is in Martin Schongauer (c.1420–c.1488) that we find the first really able and accomplished master of the German school. His admirable works—very quaint, and full of the richest decorative feeling—are extremely scarce, but they may be studied in the excellent fac-similes executed by M. Amand-Durand of Paris. Along with Schongauer may also be named Israel von Meckenen (c. 1480–1503), another prolific and excellent engraver. In Albert Dürer (1471–1528), however, we have the great master of the German school, alike in the admirably accomplished technique of his plates, in their nobility of design, power of draughtsmanship, and expressional qualities. Not far beneath him must be ranked Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533), a productive and talented workman with the burin, though he was inspired by a less lofty and profound imagination, and dealt with homelier subjects than his great contemporary. At the early age of fourteen he had already produced several very accomplished plates, and he worked unceasingly, both as painter and engraver, till his death at the age of forty. Under the influence of Dürer, there sprang up a school of engravers working after their own designs. These men, distinguished by a dexterous use of the burin, and by very considerable invention and decorative skill, are known, from the small size of their plates, as 'The Little Masters.' They include Albert Aldorfer (c. 1488–1538), Jacob Binck (c. 1490–1569), Hans Sebald Beham (1500–50), Bartel Beham (1502–40), Heinrich Aldegrever (1502–c. 1555), Georg Pencz (c. 1500–50), and Hans Brosamer (c. 1485–1532). In the end of the 16th century a notable school of line-engravers arose in Holland, among the members of which Henry Goltzius (1558–1617) produced portrait-engravings of extreme delicacy and finish, and Henry Hondius (c. 1573–c. 1662) is also favourably known for plates of a similar class; while Schelte Bolswert (born c. 1586), Paul Pontius (c. 1596), Lucas Vosterman (c. 1580), Peter de Jode (1606–60), and others were members of a school which owed its rise to the influence of Rubens. Among the more modern German line-engravers are Johann Georg Wille (1715–1807), Georg Friedrich Schmidt (1712–75), and Johann Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Müller (1783–1816), known by his fine rendering of the 'Madonna di San Sisto'; all of whom worked for a time in France.
In France some of the earliest line-engravings are the illustrations to a book by Breydenbach, published at Lyons in 1488, and reproducing wood-cut views published at Mainz two years previously. Noël Garnier (working up till 1540) is known by his copies from the German engravers; but in Jean Duvet (1485–1561) France first possessed an engraver of real ability. Considerably influenced by Mantegna, he produced his 'Martyrdom of St Sebastian,' and his series of 'The Apocalypse' and of 'The Amours of Henry II.,' works of considerable inventive power. He was followed by Claude Corneille (c. 1550), Jean de Gourmont (c. 1550), Jean Cousin (1501–c. 1589), Pierre Woeiriot (1532), and Étienne Delaune (1519–83), an able engraver who worked after Cousin, and is also known by his graceful hunting subjects and by his series of 'The Sciences' and the 'Twelve Months.' From such men we pass to the school of Fontainebleau, formed by Rosso and Primaticcio, of which, among the engravers, the most celebrated are Antonio Fantuzzi de Trento (1508–c. 1550), Léonard Tiry (working 1540–65), René Boyvin (1530–c. 1598); and Guido Ruggieri (working about 1570), Thomas de Leu (c. 1560–1612), and Léonard Gaultier (c. 1552–1641) may be named as good engravers of portraits, leading the way to the great school of French portrait-engravers in line of the 17th century, who carried the art to the utmost conceivable perfection of which their aims and method admitted. Among these are Claude Mellan (1598–1688); Robert Nantenil (c. 1623–78), one of the most spirited and manly engravers of that or of any time; Jean Morin (c. 1600–c. 1666); Gérard Edelinck (c. 1640–1707), a native of Antwerp, summoned to France by Colbert; Gérard Andran (1640–1703), the most able draughtsman of the school, who largely employed etching in combination with his burin-work; and Antoine Masson (1636–1700). The line-engravers of this period are seen at their highest in their portrait-subjects, which are delightfully spirited and intelligent in handling, and—being frequently, as was usually the case with Nanteuil's work, done ad vivum, or from the engraver's own drawing made from the life—possess the highest interest and authenticity as direct and original portraits. Following these men come a group of portrait-engravers who were more exclusively employed in rendering the works of painters, and whose work, absolutely skilful and accomplished as it was, rendering details and reproducing textures with unexampled exactitude and variety of touch, was yet somewhat less manly, direct, and simple than that of their predecessors. Among these were Pierre Drevet the Elder (1663–1738); Pierre Drevet the Younger (1697–1739), from whom we have a superb portrait of Bossuet, after Rigaud; and Jean Daullé (1703–63). To Wille, Schmidt, and Müller we have already referred as engravers of German nationality working in France. Laurent Cars (1702–71), Nicolas de Larmessin (1684–1756), Bernard Lépicé (1699–1755), and Pierre-Louis Surugne (1717–71) produced admirably faithful transcripts from the figure-pictures of Watteau, Chardin, and other contemporary painters. Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715–88), in addition to similar work, executed a series of valuable medallion portraits of most celebrated men of the time; and Jacques-Philippe Lebas (1707–83), Claude-Augustin Duflos (1701–84), Pierre-Philippe Choffard (c. 1729–1809), and Augustin de Saint-Aubin (1736–1807) transcribed with vivacity the vignette book-illustrations of Gravelot and Eisen. In more recent times Louis Copia (1764–99) and Barthélemy Roger (1770–1840) ably engraved the works of Prud'hon; Charles-Clement Bervic (1756–1822) was an accomplished pupil of Wille, influenced by the classical revival inaugurated by David; after whose works Pierre-Alexandre Tardieu (1756–1844), another pupil of Wille's, engraved much, though his most important plate is 'The Earl of Arundel,' after Vandyck. In our own time Auguste Boucher-Desnoyers (1779–1857) has produced many thoroughly accomplished plates, chiefly after Raphael; and Louis Calamatta (see above), Paul Mercuri, another Italian engraver working in France, and Achille-Louis Martinet (1806–77) have also been most skilful engravers.
Among the earliest line-engravings published in England are the copperplates in 'The Birth of Mankind' (1540), and in a translation of Vesalius's Anatomy (1545); the illustrations of the latter having been copied from the original woodcuts by Thomas Geminus, who was also the translator; but William Rogers (c. 1545) is usually regarded as the first English line-engraver of mark. He is best known by his full-length of Queen Elizabeth, after Oliver. Several members of the De Passe family settled in England in the middle of the 17th century; and Renold Elstracke (c. 1620) and Francis Delarm (1590) were the chief engravers of the scarce and interesting historic portraits in Holland's Basilioogia (1618). A more important name is that of William Faithorne the Elder (1616–91)—a pupil, while in France, of Nanteuil's—among whose works is a portrait of Milton, 'ad vivum delin. et sculpsit, 1670.' His plates lead us to those of William Hogarth (1697–1764), whose burin engraved, in a sound, honest, and straightforward fashion, many of the figure-subjects executed by his brush.
Next comes a group of far more accomplished engravers, who worked in a classic and finished, if somewhat formal manner. Among these are Sir Robert Strange (1721-92), known mainly by his transcripts from the Italian masters; William Woollett (1735-85), seen at his best when reproducing the landscapes of Claude and Richard Wilson; and William Sharp (1749-1824); while William Blake (1757-1827), a true and sensitive 'painter-engraver,' won an abiding place in the history of the art by his 'Illustrations of the Book of Job.' The end of the last century and the earlier part of the present is distinguished by the achievements of the great school of English landscape-engravers in line founded by William Radclyffe (1780-1855), and including Robert Brandard (1805-62), J. T. Willmore (1800-63), and William Miller (1796-1882), whose admirable artistry translated with the most finished skill the subtlest cloud-effects of Turner. The vignette illustrations to Rogers's Italy (1830) and Poems (1834) are marvellous examples of the work, on a minute scale, of this school of engravers. Since the period of these men, line-engraving has declined in England, the popular demand now running more in the direction of etching and of various photographic reproductive processes; but within recent years we have had such accomplished burinists as G. T. Doo (1800-86), Lumb Stocks (born 1812), and C. H. Jeans (1827-79). In America, which now possesses a singularly dexterous school of wood-engravers, and also several talented etchers, comparatively little of artistic worth has been produced in line-engraving. Here the process has been chiefly used for book illustration, and for the reproduction of portraiture; and many of its practitioners have been artists of British nationality. For an account of American engravers, see W. S. Baker's American Engravers and their Works (Phila. 1875).
Etching.—Albert Dürer (1471-1528), so prolific as a line-engraver and a woodcut-designer, has also the distinction of being the earliest artist who used the process of etching; but the first—and as yet unequalled—master in this department is Rembrandt (1607-69), who, alike in portrait and subject etchings and in his rarer etched landscapes, is the perfect example of what a 'painter-etcher,' an etcher working direct from nature or from his own designs, should be. Much also was done by the pupils and immediate successors of Rembrandt, by such men as Ferdinand Bol (c. 1611-81), Philip de Koninck (1619-89); and later Adriaen Janszoon van Ostade (1610-85), Cornelis Pietersz Bega (1620-64), Nicolaas Berchem (1620-83), Paul Potter (1625-54), and Renier Zeeman (born 1612) all executed etchings worthy of preservation and study. By Van Dyck's own hand (1599-1641) is a series of masterly etchings from his portraits, plates which were afterwards completed by the burins of professional engravers. Daniel Nicolaus Chodowiecki (1726-1801), a most prolific etcher, born at Danzig, and working in Berlin, is known by his admirably spirited and graceful book-illustrations. In our own time, Jan Barthold Jongkind and Carel Nicolaas van 's Gravesande have produced landscape-etchings in essential sympathy with the work of the early Dutchmen; and Professor Wilhelm Unger is favourably known as an etcher from paintings.
In Claude (1600-82), an Italian working in France, we have an etcher who infused into his work with the needle much of that delicacy and tenderness of tone and atmosphere for which his work with the brush is pre-eminent: and Jacques
Callot (1592-1635) was a spirited and prolific etcher of figure-subjects. During the 18th century the sound traditions of etching seem to have been forgotten, and its true capabilities forgone in France and elsewhere; and the revived practice of the art, upon correct lines, dates from about 1840, when painter-etchers like Charles Daubigny (1817-78) and Charles Jacque (born 1813) began to find, in a periodical entitled L'Artiste, an outlet for the plates which they had etched for mere love of the process and of its artistic possibilities. The Gazette des Beaux Arts, established in 1857, is also intimately associated with the revival of the art in France, as was also M. Cadart, the Paris publisher. Among the more eminent of the modern French etchers may be named Charles Méryon (1821-68), known by his 'views' of Paris, 'views' which are also visions; Maxime Lalanne (1827-86), one of the most graceful masters of the point; Veyrassat; Félix Braquemond (born 1833), a robust and vigorous etcher; and Jules Jacquemart (1837-80), celebrated for his delicate and sensitive renderings of old jewellers' work and other precious objects of still-life, as well as for his transcripts from pictures. We have here spoken mainly of the painter-etchers, but etching, of a particularly skilled and dexterous sort, has been largely employed in Paris as a freer, swifter, and less mechanical method than line-engraving for the reproduction of paintings. Among the most skilled of the French reproductive etchers are Leopold Flameng, Paul-Adolphe Rajon (1842-88), Charles Waltner, and Le Rat.
In England, the first representative etcher is Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-77), a native of Prague, brought to this country by the Earl of Arundel in 1637. He worked under the constant pressure of extreme poverty, and much that he produced was beneath his best powers; but the finest of his prints are monumental and exemplary as specimens of the art. 'People sometimes say to me, "What is it you see in Hollar?" and I always reply, "Nearly everything,"' writes Seymour Haden. During the years that succeeded Hollar, the true spirit of the process was lost sight of in Britain, as abroad; though the mere processes of the art were kept alive by their use in preparation and subordination to line-engraving, and by the practice of such etchers as Thomas Worlidge (1700-66) in England, and David Denchar and John Kay (1742-1826) in Scotland. It was Andrew Geddes, A.R.A. (1783-1844), whose example first gave a wholesome and vigorous stimulus to the practice of the art; and, in particular, he produced some most effective work in dry-point. Such of the etchings of David Wilkie, R.A. (1785-1841), as the 'Gentleman at his Desk,' are excellent in aim and spirited in treatment; but both Geddes and Wilkie must be studied in the scarce original states of their plates, not in the much-worn issue of 1875. Turner (1775-1851) used etching with admirable power and unerring selection of line in the plates of his Liber Studiorum, where the light and shade was afterwards added by mezzotint, applied usually by the hand of a professional engraver. A considerable stimulus was given to the art in England by the establishment of the Etching Club, which began to publish portfolios in 1841; and still more by the publication, in 1868, of P. G. Hamerton's Etching and Etchers, and the establishment of the Portfolio, a magazine chiefly devoted to etchings, under his editorship, in 1870. The Etching Club included in its membership such able etchers as Samuel Palmer (1805-81), J. C. Hook, C. W. Cope, and Seymour Haden, an amateur who ranks with James M'N. Whistler at the very head of the painter-etchers working in England. Alphonse Legros and Hubert Herkomer have also done much to stimulate interest in the art, both by the example of their works and by direct manipulative tuition. Among the younger of our able painter-etchers are William Strang and Frank Short, the former reminiscent in his work of Legros, the latter of Whistler. The more distinctively reproductive etchers include R. A. Macbeth, known by most important transcripts from Frederick Walker and George Mason, and from the works of Titian and Velasquez in Madrid and London; while Mortimer Meupes has rendered 'The Banquet of the Officers of the Archers of St Adrian' of Frans Hals in the largest dry-point on record, as well as produced many independent plates, notably two series of Japanese subjects. Among the earlier of the artists who practised etching in America may be named William Dunlap (1766-1839), the historian of American art; George L. Brown (q.v.), known by his nine 'Etchings of the Campagna, Rome' (1860); and Edwin Forbes, who, about 1876, published a portfolio of forty plates of 'Life Studies of the Great Army.' In 1866 M. Cadart of Paris established a French Etching Club in New York, which did a good deal to foster the art. The American Art Review, founded in 1879, during the two years of its existence afforded a means for the publication of etchings; and in 1881 an interesting exhibition of the works of American etchers was held at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Among the most talented of recent etchers in America may be named Frank Duveneck, who has produced some admirable Venetian street-scenes, Otto Bacher, Henry Farrer, Joseph Pennell, Stephen Parrish, Mary Nimmo Moran, Thomas Moran, and Charles Platt.
Soft-ground Etching.—This process was effectively employed by John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) in his architectural subjects, by Samuel Prout (1784-1852), and by John Ruskin (q.v.) in the illustrations to the first edition of his Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849); but it has now been superseded by lithography, which attains similar results in a readier way, and is much less costly in printing.
Mezzotint.—The process of mezzotint was invented by an amateur, Ludvig von Siegen (born 1609, at Utrecht), an officer who held the appointment of 'Kammerjunker' to the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. In 1642 he forwarded to his patron a portrait of his mother, the Dowager Landgravine of Hesse, as the first-fruits of his newly-discovered process, stating, in the letter which accompanied it, that 'how this work was done, no copperplate-engraver or artist can explain or imagine.' In 1654, after having executed other plates in the same manner, Von Siegen visited Brussels, and there came into contact with Prince Rupert (1619-82), who had already been practising etching, and to him, for the first time, the inventor disclosed his process. It was adopted by the prince, who was assisted by Wallerant Vaillant (1623-77), and was afterwards practised by Theodore Caspar von Fuerstenberg, one of whose plates is dated 1656; Johann Thomas of Ypres, who is stated to have acquired the art at Frankfort; Abraham Bloateling (1634-c.1695), an admirable engraver of portraits, who worked for a time in England; Gerard Valck (1626-c.1720); and by many of the leading Dutch painters and engravers of the century. During the 18th century mezzotint-engraving declined in Holland, and, indeed, on the Continent generally, though Jacques Christofle Le Blon (born 1670 at Frankfort, died 1741 at Paris) devised a process for printing mezzotints by means of which various colours of ink appeared in each impression. The art was to some extent revived in Vienna, about 1780, by Jacobe, who had studied in London under the great English mezzotinters of the period; and, in the same city, Johann Peter Pichler (1765-1806) executed some admirable plates, particularly his transcripts from the flower-pieces of Van Huysum.
In France we have mezzotint-plates by J. Van der Bruggen (born 1649, at Brussels), dated from Paris as early as 1681. Sebastian Barras (born c.1680 at Aix; died 1710), Isaac Sarabat (working 1695-1701), and Bernard Picart (1673-1733) are other mezzotint-engravers who worked in France; but here the process was comparatively little used on account of the great excellence of the French line-engravers.
It was, however, in England that the art was most extensively and successfully practised, as is indicated by one of the phrases used on the Continent to designate mezzotint-engraving, la manière anglaise. The process was introduced in 1660 into England by Prince Rupert, whose method is described in Evelyn's Sculptura, or the Art of Chalcography (1662). He executed some fifteen plates, among which the chief are the 'Great Executioner' and the 'Standard-bearer.' Sir Christopher Wren (1631-1723) and John Evelyn (1620-1706) have been believed, on rather insufficient evidence, to have practised the art. William Sherwin's plate of Charles II. is dated 1669; Francis Place (1650-1728) scraped a few portraits, including one of Charles I., free in style and delicate in gradation; Isaac Beckett (1653-1719), and particularly John Smith the Elder (1652-1742), worked much after the portraits of Kneller; and John Faber the Younger (born in Holland, 1684; died in London, 1756) engraved series of 'The Beauties of Hampton Court' and 'The Members of the Kit-Cat Club' after the same artist, transcribed the portraits of many minor portrait-painters of the time, and also engraved many subject-pictures, one of the finest being a mezzotint from Frans Hals's 'Man playing the Guitar' (1754). Richard Earlom (1743-1822) is seen at his highest in his mezzotints from Dutch flower-pictures, prints which are unrivalled for delicacy; and among his other works are his reproductions, in combined etching and mezzotint, of Claude's Liber Veritatis drawings. We have now reached the perfect time of the art in England, the period of the great school of mezzotinters who reproduced with splendid power the works of Reynolds and his contemporaries, with whose style of painting, with whose broad generalising touch, the method of mezzotint is in most essential sympathy. Among the greatest of these men are James M'Ardell (1710-65), by whose prints Reynolds said 'I shall be immortalised,' Edward Fisher (1730-85), James Watson (1740-90), John Jones (1740-1810), J. Raphael Smith (1750-1812), Valentine Green (1739-1813), William Dickinson (1746-1823), S. W. Reynolds (1773 or 1774-1835), and Charles Turner (1773-1857). The mezzotint-prints executed after Sir Joshua alone include the work of about sixty different engravers. Some of these men, such as Charles Turner and S. W. Reynolds, took part in the plates of the Liber Studiorum of J. M. W. Turner (himself an accomplished mezzotinter, as certain plates of that series attest), and engraved the portraits of Raeburn, works especially adapted for reproduction by their method; and William Ward (1766-1826) scraped a few splendid prints after another Scottish painter, Andrew Geddes. The latest and most effective development of pure mezzotint in landscape includes the renderings by Thomas G. Lupton (1791-1873) of Turner's 'Ports' and 'Rivers' of England, and the transcripts by David Lucas (1802-81) from the works of Constable, a series executed, like the Liber Studiorum of Turner, under the closest supervision of the painter; who, however, did not, like Turner, himself use the scraper, though he longed to do so, writing to his engraver, 'How I wish I could scratch and tear away with your tools on the steel.' On account of the larger number of impressions which could be printed from them, steel plates had already been introduced by the mezzotinters, but these being scraped with somewhat less facility than the copper plates formerly employed, tended much to the deterioration of the art and to the loss of its especial qualities of freedom and painter-like breadth, especially when the mezzotint work was largely supplemented, as was now commonly the case, by the burin, and by etching and stipple-engraving. By means of this modern method engravers of first-rate power, such as Samuel Cousins (1801-87), were capable of producing attractive and excellent plates; but in the hands of inferior workmen the results attained by this bastard combination of various processes were pitiablely inartistic. Within quite recent years, however, there has been a distinct revival of the art upon the old legitimate lines of pure mezzotinting upon copper. One of the first inaugurators of the revival was Joseph Jossey, who engraved very sympathetically Whistler's 'Thomas Carlyle' and 'Portrait of the Artist's Mother.' William Campbell (1855-87) executed several excellent mezzotints after Burne-Jones. A powerful impetus towards right technical methods was given by Hubert Herkomer (born 1849 in Bavaria), and among his pupils D. Wehr-schmidt and William Henderson have engraved excellently after Holl's portraits, and Gerald Robinson is favourably known by his delicate transcript from Van Dyck's bust portrait of Henrietta Maria in the royal collection. Seymour Haden has added mezzotint to the later states of his powerful etching from Turner's 'Calais Pier;' and F. Short, in addition to original work, has produced, in combined etching and mezzotint, some admirable copies from Turner's Liber Studiorum. Mezzotint was the first form of engraving practised in America, Peter Pelham (c.1684-1751) having removed from London and settled in Boston before 1727, the year in which he published, with his own painting, a mezzotint of the Rev. Cotton Mather, which was followed by various other portraits of eminent Americans. Among the other mezzotint engravers of America may be named Thomas B. Welch (c.1814-74), and John Sartain (born in London, 1808).
Aquatint-engraving.—This method is believed to have been invented by Jean-Claude-Richard de Saint-Non (1730-1804), a French draughtsman and etcher who studied in Italy, and to have been communicated by him to Jean Baptiste Le Prince (1733-81), a native of Metz working in Paris, who sold the secret to the Hon. Charles Greville. By him it was disclosed to Paul Sandby, who was the first to practise the method in England, using it to reproduce his Welsh landscapes, and carrying it to great perfection in his 'Views in the Encampments in the Parks' (1780). It was also employed in Scotland by David Allan (1744-98), who engraved in this manner his illustrations to Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd (1788). F. C. Lewis (1779-1856), the best aquatint-engraver of his time, is known by his reproductions of the drawings of Claude and of Lawrence; and he added the aquatint light-and-shade to the first plate of Turner's Liber Studiorum, mezzotint being employed for this purpose in the rest of the subjects of the series. Catherine Prestel (died in London, 1794), a German, executed some fine plates in combined etching and aquatint; and in Spain Goya (1746-1828) employed a similar union of processes in the wild and bizarre plates which he produced. Aquatint is now little used, but in our own time Brunet-Debaines has adopted it with accomplished skill in his renderings of the landscapes of Turner.
Chalk or Stipple Engraving.—Jean Charles
François (1717-69) is said to have been the first engraver to employ this process, and for its discovery he received a pension of 600 francs from the French king, along with the title of 'Graveur des desseins du Cabinet du Roi.' He used the method chiefly for the reproduction of drawings in crayons, for which it has since been very popular until the discovery of Lithography (q.v.) and of Photography (q.v.), by which such fac-similes can more accurately and readily be produced. He was followed by Giles de Marteau the Elder (1722), another able engraver. The process was introduced into England by William Wynne Ryland (born 1732; executed for forgery, 1783), who worked in this method after drawings by the old masters and the designs of Angelica Kauffman; but the most celebrated of the stipple-engravers working in England was an Italian, Francesco Bartolozzi (1725-1815). In America some good portrait engraving in stipple was produced by David Edwin (1776-1841), an Englishman who studied in his native country and in Holland, and by Iou B. Forrest (1814-70), a Scotsman trained in London.
The works dealing with the history and practice of engraving are very numerous, and every year adds many fresh volumes upon the subject. In Dr W. H. Willshire's Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient Prints (2d ed. 1877), a useful book of reference, will be found a list of nearly a hundred works devoted to engraving. For an account of technical processes, the student may consult T. H. Fielding's Art of Engraving (1841), P. G. Hamerton's Etcher's Handbook (1871), the three editions of his Etching and Etchers, and his Graphic Arts (1882). Le Peintre-Graveur of Adam Bartsch (Vienna, 1803-21, and Leip. 1854), with its supplements by J. D. Passavant (6 vols. Leip. 1860-64), and A. P. F. Robert-Dumesnil's Le Peintre-Graveur Français (8 vols. Paris, 1835-50), and the 11 volumes of its continuation by Georges Duplessis, are the standard catalogues of old prints. Among the other works that may be named are W. Y. Ottley's Early History of Engraving (2 vols. Lond. 1816); Georges Duplessis's Histoire de la Graveur en France (Paris, 1861), Les Merveilles de la Graveur (Paris, 1869), and Histoire de la Graveur (Paris, 1880); and Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (edited by R. E. Graves and W. Armstrong, 2 vols. Lond. 1886-89); and there are separate monographs and catalogues for the more important engravers. See also S. R. Koehler, Etching, its Progress and History (1886); Herkomer, Etching and Mezzotint Engraving (1892); Wedmore, Etching in England (1895); and the valuable series of fac-similes by M. Amand-Durand of Paris.