Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

by comte Henri Delaborde

England appears at first only to have participated in the European movement amongst the fine arts by the trade which it carried on in foreign productions, and the hospitality and the patronage which it gave to many celebrated artists. Thus the country was enriched with foreign works, and examples were obtained, not perhaps worthy of being slavishly followed, but at all events capable of stimulating native talent. At the persuasion of Erasmus, Holbein, in 1526, came to try his fortune in England, and was followed afterwards by Rubens and Van Dyck, as well as De Bry, Vorsterman, and the indefatigable Hollar, the latter an engraver unrivalled in his own style, and perhaps the most unfortunate in worldly circumstances who ever practised the art.

As early as 1483 wood-cuts were used for illustration in Caxton's "Golden Legend," and subsequent printers adopted the same practice in issuing their publications. In like manner, copperplate engravings appeared first as illustrations for books, notably in one called "The Birth of Mankind," dedicated to Queen Catherine, and published by Thomas Raynalde in 1540, and in a translation of Vesalius' "Anatomy," published in 1545 by Thomas Geminus, who not only did the literary work, but copied the original wood-cuts on copper. In the middle of the century, the Hogenbergs took advantage of the method for portraiture, Francis engraving in 1555 a portrait of Queen Mary, and his brother Remigius in 1573 one of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have retained the engraver in his service.

About the same period appeared William Rogers, who was born in London in 1545, and may be considered as the earliest English engraver worthy of mention. His series of portraits are of considerable merit, especially a whole length, taken from a drawing by Isaac Oliver, of Queen Elizabeth, standing with orb and sceptre, and clothed in a rich embroidered and puffed dress. This print bears at the bottom the name of the engraver, and was afterwards reduced in size all round, turning the figure of the Queen into a three-quarter length, and cutting away Rogers' name, which was not reinserted in the later publication. Both sizes of the print are scarce, especially the original, and indeed for a considerable time the reduced impression was considered anonymous, until the appearance of the larger engraving and its comparison with the smaller established the identity of the two. The elder Crispin de Passe engraved a plate from the same drawing of smaller size, and with different accessories in the background.

De Passe, a native of Utrecht, and his family, William, Simon, and a daughter Magdalen, came over to England at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and engraved many prints of much interest in a style peculiarly their own. Reginald Elstracke (born 1620) and Francis Delaram flourished about the same period.

But nothing was accomplished by any English engraver of great artistic value, or which could be fairly compared with the work in other countries, until the middle of the century. It was then that William Faithorne, by his series of portraits, full of colour and executed in a clear and brilliant style, freed England from this reproach. He may be said to have inaugurated the era of English engravers, who, though mostly surpassed by other nations in the line manner of engraving, have no rivals in mezzotint. This style, which, when combined with bold etching, may be called the culmination of the art, was taken up in this country as soon as discovered, adopted by the English as their own, and gradually brought by them to the fullest perfection. Faithorne was a pupil of Sir Robert Peake, painter and engraver, and is said also to have studied under Nanteuil, when driven through the troubles of the first revolution to take refuge in France. His portraits of Mary, Princess of Orange, the Countess of Exeter, Sir William Paston, Queen Catherine of Braganza, Charles II., with long flowing black hair, Thomas Killegrew, dramatist and court favourite, and the famous Marquis of Worcester, one of the contributors to the invention of the steam engine, rank high as engravings, and worthily take their place amidst the achievements of other countries.

Before treating of mezzotint and the new field which it opened out to the engraver, it will be well to call attention to the coming of Hollar to England, and his peculiar method of work, which consisted mainly of etching, assisted by the point or fine graver. Wenceslaus Hollar (born 1607) was forced early in life by the exigencies of those warlike times to leave his native land—Bohemia—and to travel through Germany, designing and engraving on his way, until, in 1636, he met at Cologne with the Earl of Arundel, the English Ambassador to Ferdinand II., who immediately took him into his employment, and on his return from his mission brought him to England, where, with the exception of the troubled years of the first revolution, Hollar resided for the remainder of his life.

Misfortune, however, which attended Hollar in youth, seemed relentless throughout his entire career; after the restoration of Charles II., he underwent the terrible experiences of the plague and of the fire of London, and the times, hostile to every pursuit of art, reduced Hollar to a state of indigence and distress from which, in spite of persevering industry, he seems never to have been able to recover. Sent to Africa in 1669 as the king's designer, to make drawings of the fortifications and surroundings of the town of Tangiers, he meets with Algerine corsairs on his way back, from which he escapes with difficulty. On his return, it is only after delay and vexation that he can obtain £100 from the impecunious king for his two years' labours and expenses. He travels through England, making drawings and etchings of abbeys, churches, ruins, and cathedrals, and ultimately dies at Westminster (1677) in a state of extreme poverty and distress, his very death-bed being disturbed by bailiffs, who threaten the seizure of the last article of furniture he possessed, the bed upon which he is lying. His body was laid in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster; his name and works remain living and immortal. Hollar's prints amount to considerably over two thousand, and embrace all kinds of subjects, portraits, landscapes, architecture, costume, and animal and still-life of varied character and quality. His treatment of the textures of hair, feathers, or the bloom on butterflies and other insects, is simply unrivalled. Besides his portraits, among other well-known and valued prints, there are—after his own designs—the long bird's-eye view of London in four parts, plans of the same city before and after the great fire (1666), exterior and interior views of the old Cathedral of St. Paul[51] Westminster Hall, with its picturesque surroundings, the Cathedrals of Lincoln, Southwell, Strasbourg, Antwerp, and York, sets of butterflies, insects, costumes, muffs, and richly-wrought jewelled vessels.

In addition to these, he engraved a set of thirteen plates (1671) on the various English ways of hunting, hawking, and fishing, after Francis Barlow, painter and engraver, who flourished during the same period, and excelled in the representation of animals, birds, and fish. The latter artist has left a curious print—of which the only known example is supposed to be that of the British Museum—entitled "The Last Horse Race" (August 24, 1684), run before Charles II., at Dorsett Ferry (? Datchett), near Windsor Castle. Hollar was the master of Robert Gaywood, who in some measure imitates his style, and many of whose plates are justly esteemed, such as the series of heads after Van Dyck, the curious likeness of Cromwell, the large print of the philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus, as opposing professors of gaiety and gravity, and the plates of birds and animals after Barlow.

In the meantime, the art of mezzotint had been invented, in the first place, by Ludwig von Siegen, a lieutenant-colonel in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who used the method to execute a large portrait, bearing the date 1642, of the Princess Amelia Elizabeth, the dowager Landgravine of Hesse. The credit for the discovery has also been ascribed to the well-known Prince Rupert[52] nephew of Charles I.; but the legend of the prince meeting with a soldier cleaning his corroded gun, and thus conceiving the idea of engraving a copper plate, rests on no sufficient foundation. It is, however, enough for this romantic prince's undying renown, that, having acquired the secret of producing the necessary ground by some means or other, most probably from Von Siegen, he not only introduced the process into England, but executed himself several remarkable engravings in the style, one of which, known as "The Great Executioner" (dated 1658), after Spagnoletto[53] to distinguish it from a smaller plate containing the head only of the same figure, remains to this day as a powerful and wonderful example of the method. It is curious that, with the partial exception of Germany, and a few isolated instances in other countries, mezzotint should have been practically confined to England; the very name is not recognised elsewhere. Germany uses the word "Schabkunst," scraping art; the French, "La manière noire," the black manner; and Italy, "L'incisione a fumo," engraving in smoke or black[54]

Before the discovery of the new method, all engraving consisted of an arrangement of lines varied occasionally by dots, which had to be cut into the polished copperplate either directly by the graver or indirectly by the use of acid. Untouched by either graver or acid, the polished plate would thus, under the ordinary process of copperplate printing (rubbing in the ink by a suitable dabber and then cleaning off all the ink not held fast by in-dents), print white; mezzotint reverses the process. The plate, instead of being polished when the engraver commences his work presents a close, fine, file-like surface, which, if inked, wiped, and put under the heavy-pressure roller press, would now print off a deep uniform surface of bloomy black; in place, therefore, of putting in lines or dots to hold the ink, the engraver has to scrape off the close file-like grain at the required parts, bringing up his highest lights by means of a burnisher; the scraper and burnisher, not the graver, are consequently the principal tools used in executing mezzotint. In addition to the greater ease and rapidity with which an engraving could be made by this process, the range of effect or colour was immensely increased. All tones between pure white and the deepest black were now capable of realisation, and it is easy to see how greatly were enlarged the resources of the engraver, whose special gift and claim as an original artist—a fact too often forgotten, or rather not sufficiently recognised—consist in his power of translating into various shades of black and white the numerous colours at the disposal of the painter.