One other point of interest and importance to collectors of engravings and etchings should be mentioned. Within the last few years, an invention for coating the surface of engraved plates with a film of steel (which can be renewed as often as necessary) renders the surface practically indestructible; and it is now possible to print a thousand impressions from a copper plate without injury or loss of quality. These modern inventions are no secrets, they have been described repeatedly in technical journals and in lectures, notably in those delivered during the past few years at the Society of Arts, and published in the Journal. But the majority of the public, and even many collectors of prints and etchings, are ignorant of the number of copies which can now be taken without deterioration from one plate.
It is necessary to the art amateur that he should know something of these things, if only to explain why it is that scratching on a copper plate has come so much into vogue in England lately, and why there has been such a remarkable revival of the art of Dürer at the end of this century. The reason for the movement will be better understood when it is explained that by the process just referred to, of “steeling” the surface of plates, the “burr,” as it is called, and the most delicate lines of the engraver are preserved intact for a much larger number of impressions than formerly. The taste for etchings and the higher forms of the reproductive arts is still spreading rapidly, but the fact remains that etchings and éditions de luxe do not reach one person in a thousand in any civilised community. It is only by means of wood engravings, and the cheaper and simpler forms of process illustration, that the public is appealed to pictorially through the press.
LINE PROCESS BLOCK.
[1] All the illustrations in this book are produced by mechanical processes excepting those marked in the List of Illustrations; and all are printed simultaneously with the letterpress. For description of processes, see Appendix.
[2] One of the last and best examples of pure line-engraving was by M. Joubert, from a painting by E. J. Poynter, R.A., called “Atalanta’s Race,” exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1876. The engraving of this picture was nearly three years in M. Joubert’s hands—a tardy process in these days.
