Engraving: Its Origin, Processes, and History

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.

The forming or laying the grained surface, technically called ground, is necessarily of the utmost importance, and is effected by a tool known amongst practical workers as "the rocker," called also "cradle," or "berceau" – the French equivalent – from the peculiar rocking motion given to it by the operator. The rocker is made of moderately thin and carefully tempered steel about two inches broad, and might be termed a stumpy, wide chisel were it not that it is curved (like a cheese-cutter) and notched or serrated at the cutting edge, which serration is caused by one side of the steel being indented into small fluted ridges running parallel upwards to the handle by which the tool is held, and somewhat presenting the appearance of a small-tooth-comb. On the plain smooth side the rocker is ground level to the edge, like other cutting tools, and sharpened on a stone or hone of suitable quality. In laying the ground this instrument is held firmly in the hand, the elbow resting on a convenient cushion, the serrated cutting edge placed on the plate with a slight inclination, and a steady rocking motion given to the tool, which slowly advances over the surface of the copper or steel, forming on its way a narrow indented path. Side by side with this path another is made until the whole surface of the plate has been covered. The series of parallel paths is then repeated at a certain angle over the previous ones, and so on in regular progressive angular order until the required closeness of texture has been produced; to do this it is necessary that the series of parallel paths – technically called a way– should be repeated in proper angular progression from sixty to a hundred times. As the continual friction of the elbow against the cushion caused the laying of a ground to become a severe and painful operation, particularly when the use of steel instead of copper plates came into practice early in the present century, a modification of this plan was introduced whereby the tool was fixed at the fitting angle into one end of a long pole, the other end being inserted loosely in a ring fixed on the board upon which the plate was placed; the requisite rocking motion could then be easily given by the hand, and much painful labour avoided. The necessity for a good ground being so great, as the process became more and more general in England, a race of professional ground-layers grew up, who were paid at a certain rate per square inch for the surface thus covered. Much controversy has taken place as to the means by which Siegen, Prince Rupert, and the earlier mezzotinters produced their grounds, but there is little doubt that it must have been accomplished by some rude form of the present tool, and the curious appearance of the grain – as seen in very early mezzotints – must have been caused by the irregular crossings of the impressed layers, the necessity of regular angular procedure throughout the plate, in order to obtain an even tone, not having been recognised at first.

Prince Rupert imparted the secret of the process to Wallerant Vaillant, a native of Lisle, a portrait painter (born 1623, died 1677) who practised the method with great success, working chiefly at Amsterdam, and leaving to posterity many prints of considerable artistic merit. Sir Christopher Wren is also credited with the execution of one of the earliest mezzotints, a negro's head with a collar round the throat, but there is no satisfactory authority for the various statements to this effect, the only sound fact being that this early print is an extremely interesting specimen of the process. The first English engraving executed in this style bearing a date is a portrait of Charles II. in an oval frame (Giul. Sherwin, fecitt 1669), by William Sherwin, who, there is some reason to believe, acquired his knowledge of the process directly from Prince Rupert. Sherwin, born about 1650, engraved also in line55 and is said to have had the distinction of engraver to the king conferred on him by patent, an exceptional honour.

Among the mezzotinters about this period, Abraham Blootelingh, born at Amsterdam in 1634, and distinguished both as a line engraver and etcher, came over to England in 1673, made use of the method with admirable success, and is said to have effected considerable improvement in the process of laying the ground; his life-size head of the Duke of Monmouth, in an oval border or frame, is a masterpiece of the art. But, with the above exceptions, the works left by the majority of the early mezzotinters, both English and foreign, are more curious to the student than satisfactory to the artistic eye. It was not until the close of the century, when Isaac Beckett and John Smith had already begun to issue their grand series of portraits after Kneller, Lely, and other contemporary painters, that the full capabilities of the invention were realised and the foundation laid for the steady and uninterrupted progress of the art. John Smith's clear, bright, and intelligent face ought to be well known to Englishmen both from his own engraving and also from Kneller's admirable picture, from which it was taken, so long to be seen hanging in the Rubens and Rembrandt room of the National Gallery, and lately fittingly transferred to the National Portrait Gallery. He was a pupil of Beckett and native of Northamptonshire, and died at Northampton in 1742, where there is a tablet to his memory in St. Peter's Church.

When the eighteenth century opened, mezzotint had taken firm root in England; Beckett and John Smith were in the plenitude of their powers; Jean Simon, a Protestant refugee from France (born in Normandy, 1675), had taken refuge in England, and forsaking his original method of line, had adopted that of mezzotint with great success, while G. White was already giving the first indications of the advantages that might be gained by the introduction of etching into the method. John Faber, junior, was also establishing his reputation, not only by his well-known portraits (which include the set of the Kit-cat Club56 and the Hampton Court beauties), but by many spirited fancy subjects after Mercier, and above all by an admirable print after Frank Hals of a man playing the guitar. Faber, the younger, was born in Holland in 1684, and brought to England when three years old by his father (also an engraver in mezzotint, but completely overshadowed by his son); he studied under Vanderbank, and was patronised by Kneller; his works are peculiarly valuable as forming records of the painters – now so apt to be carelessly passed by57– who lived between the time of Kneller and the rise of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and all left work of value to posterity.

The modern sharp division between painters and engravers was unknown in those days; the painter was only too glad to avail himself of the talent of the engraver to make his paintings known, and in many cases keep alive and hand down to after generations a name which otherwise might have died out and been forgotten. Painters of the present age ignore the engraver, and prefer the more tangible money results to be obtained from treating with a publisher for the purchase of their copyrights, adopting in this respect the teaching conveyed in the witty speech of Sir Godfrey Kneller, who, when reproached for his preference, to other branches of painting, of the lucrative one of portraiture, replied: "Painters of history make the dead live and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead; I paint the living and they make me live." Kneller might, however, have defended his practice on higher grounds, for portraiture, though often ignorantly decried, tests the powers of a great artist to the uttermost, and bequeaths to posterity a legacy of as valuable work as it is in the power of man to accomplish. It is interesting to note here that copyright in works of art was first obtained on the behalf of engraving; Hogarth, painter and engraver, finding that so many of his prints – which, numerously distributed, could easily be pirated – were being copied, boldly and successfully asserted his rights in the courts of law, and was the means of obtaining from Parliament a Copyright Act to defend property in art.

To Faber succeeded Thomas Frye and James McArdell, who were both born in the same city, Dublin, the birthplace of several other distinguished engravers. The life of Frye was eventful; he came in early manhood to London in the company of his fellow-townsman Stoppelaer, who by turns became artist, actor, dramatic writer, and singer. Frye commenced by painting and engraving portraits, and then took charge of the china manufactory just established at Bow, from the ruins of which afterwards arose those of Chelsea and Worcester; there he remained fifteen years, and by his taste and skill improved the manufactures in material form and ornamentation until, the business not succeeding and his health being injured by the heat of the furnaces, he had to take a journey to Wales to recruit, the expenses of which he paid by painting portraits, ultimately returning to London with some money in his pocket. Frye now took a house in Hatton Garden, where he painted miniatures, life-size heads in oils and crayons, and in the space of about two years, 1760ndash;2, executed in mezzotint the remarkable and justly esteemed series of life-size heads, which contain, among others, portraits of himself, his wife, and his mother. These were his last productions, as he died of a complication of diseases in 1762 at the age of fifty-two. Frye was industrious, amiable, and generous in character, patient in misfortune, and ingenious in accomplishing his objects; his likenesses of George III. and Queen Charlotte were obtained by frequent visits to the theatre, where it is said that the king and queen, on knowing his purpose, used kindly to turn their heads towards the artist to help him in his task; other portraits were perhaps accomplished more by the exercise of imagination, as the fine ladies he would ask to sit were wont to refuse with the excuse that they did not know in what company they might find themselves placed.

McArdell, the jovial companion of artists, the friend of Quin the actor, of whom Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, that even if the colours of his (Sir Joshua's) pictures faded his fame would be preserved by McArdell's engravings, marks an epoch in the art; for he was the first to use vigorous etching to increase the effect of mezzotint. He died young, in June, 1765, in his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in Hampstead Churchyard, where, according to Lysons, a short inscription to his memory recorded the fact.58

McArdell's immediate successors were numerous, and of striking power and originality in the exercise of their art; the more important of them were Richard Houston, John Greenwood, Edward Fisher John Spilsbury, Valentine Green, William Pether, Richard Brookshaw, John Blackmore, John Dixon, John Jones, Robert Laurie, and the two Watsons, James and Thomas, who were closely followed, in point of time, by William Dickinson, James Walker59 John Dean, John Young, the popular J. R. Smith (John Raphael), and perhaps the greatest of them all as an engraver, Richard Earlom. Many of these also practised in stipple, but their finer works in mezzotint completely overshadow these productions. It may be added that even the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds would hardly have been appreciated as thoroughly both in England and other countries, were it not for the admirable renderings of his pictures by the famous band of engravers practising during his lifetime. Gainsborough has undoubtedly suffered in this respect, for, unlike Wright of Derby, Hoppner, Opie, Morland, and Lawrence, few important mezzotints have been executed after his pictures; and were the art to revive and the engravers to be found, a mine of wealth would be waiting to reward with its treasures well-directed labour.

Earlom was born in 1743, and at his death in 1822 had reached his eightieth year; when fourteen years old he gained a premium from the Society of Arts, and attracted attention by making copies of Cipriani's pictures on the Lord Mayor's state carriage; this led to his becoming the painter's pupil and to his acquiring a thorough knowledge of drawing. The Boydells employed him to make drawings and engravings from the Houghton collection, and throughout his long life he continued to exercise unremittingly his laborious profession; his plates are numerous and of great excellence, while his skilful use of etching gives effect and variety to the many textures represented. Earlom engraved after various masters ancient and modern, and perhaps first showed the world the wide range of subjects which the style was capable of effectively representing, such as – to mention only a few of the more important plates – Correggio's "Repose in Egypt," Rubens' "Son and Nurse," Van Dyck's "Duke of Arembergh on Horseback," Vanderwerff's "Bathsheba bringing Abishag to David," the "Fish, Game, Vegetable, and Fruit Markets," after Snyders and Long John60 Van Huysum's fruit and flower pieces, Zoffany's terribly realistic representation of a "Scene in the French Revolution on the 10th of May, 1793," and his "Life School at the Royal Academy," Wright of Derby's "Blacksmith's Shop" and "Iron Forge," and the six plates after Hogarth, "Marriage à la Mode."

The renown acquired by the works of English mezzotinters gradually attracted the notice of other nations – particularly Germany – where the style had almost died out, and many foreign engravers came to this country, amongst others, J. G. Haid and the Viennese Jacobe, who not only executed valuable works in England, but were the cause of a partial renewal of the method in their own countries. The Austrian Pichler (born 1765, died 1806) finished in pure mezzotint many plates of exceptional merit, while his fruit and flower pieces after Van Huysum rival the masterpieces of Earlom after the same painter.

During the same period the English school had been making rapid strides in the other branches of copperplate engraving, line, stipple, and etching. Line, which to this day is considered by many as the highest style of the art, and which most certainly is well fitted to render the human form with grace and purity of outline and detail, has notwithstanding to overcome the difficulty of adequately expressing the various shades of colour and texture, and above all of realising the due effects of atmosphere and distance, a serious matter where the accessories are of importance or where landscape enters largely into the composition of the picture. It is, therefore, not surprising that, with mezzotint at hand with its wide range of capabilities, there should be comparatively few English engravers of eminence devoting themselves to line.

Hogarth, who was born in 1697, and began life as an engraver of arms and cyphers, naturally employed the method of line to give expression to his bold and vigorous designs, and in this was assisted by Luke Sullivan, who had been a pupil of Thomas Major. Major (born 1720) had spent some years in Paris engraving after Berghem, Wouvermans, and others; he was an artist of skill, and lived to a considerable age, holding for forty years the office of seal engraver to the king, and being the first associate61 engraver elected by the Royal Academy.

In the year 1730, Vivares, who was a Frenchman by birth, and who, in spite of natural artistic talents, had been apprenticed to a tailor, came to England at the age of eighteen and studied under Chatelain, an artist of French Protestant parentage, but born in London. Vivares soon surpassed his master, acquired great renown for his many fine plates of landscape and sea-scenes, and became a member of the Society of Artists; he lived for thirty years in Great Newport Street, and was buried in Paddington Churchyard in the year 1780.

It is, however, from the pre-eminent excellence of the line engravings of Strange, Woollett, and Sharp that the right of England to a place in the hierarchy of the art has been conceded by other nations. Sir Robert Strange, descended from an ancient Scottish family, was born at Orkney in 1721, and served an apprenticeship of six years to Richard Cooper of Edinburgh. In this city Strange started as an engraver on his own account; when the civil war broke out he joined the side of the Pretender, engraved a half-length portrait of him, and was appointed engraver to this prince; after the battle of Culloden, in which he is said to have taken part, Strange escaped to Paris, and had there the advantage of studying under Le Bas. In 1751 he returned to England, and established himself in London, where his talents were readily recognised and appreciated. On the accession of George III., Strange refused the commission to engrave whole-length portraits of the king and his Prime Minister, Lord Bute, thereby giving great offence, which, together with the remembrance of his former adventures, made Strange think it prudent to leave the country for a time; therefore, to turn to good account even such untoward circumstances, he determined to increase the knowledge of his art by travelling through the continent. In Italy he produced some of his finest engravings after Titian, Raphael, Correggio, Domenichino, Guido, and Van Dyck; his talent was everywhere acknowledged; he was elected member of the Academies of Rome, Florence, Bologna, Parma, and Paris; and, on his return to London, by his engraving after West of the apotheosis of the king's three children, who had died in infancy, he regained the royal favour and received the distinction of knighthood. Sir Robert Strange was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, but was very hostile to the Royal Academy, deeply and justly resenting their exclusion of engravers from full membership. During the later part of his life he lived in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he died in 1792. He was buried in St. Paul's Churchyard, Covent Garden.

Strange had chiefly devoted himself to classical subjects and the delineation of the human form Woollett, on the other hand, took up the branches of landscape and history, and by his skill of touch and persistently intelligent labour produced such results as were sufficient to call forth ungrudging praise from all competent judges, not only in his own country, but abroad. Among Woollett's most celebrated plates are the "Fishery," the "Battle of La Hogue," and the "Death of General Wolfe." In the printing of the last plate an accident occurred after a few proofs had been taken; a printer in careless fun taking up a hammer, cried out, "General Wolfe seems dying, I'll finish him;" saying this, he suited action to word, and unintentionally brought the hammer down on the face of the general, thus destroying by the freak of a moment the work of days of patient labour. It is said that Woollett cried on hearing the news; the painter, his art once learnt, fired by imagination, can by rapid strokes of his brush give effect to his will, while the engraver only attains his end by months of unremitting and trustful toil.

Woollett was born at Maidstone in 1735, and was apprenticed to John Tinney, who is now best known as having been the master of three distinguished pupils, Anthony Walker, John Browne, and Woollett himself. Anthony Walker engraved the well-known "Law and Physic" after Ostade, and the figures in the print of "Niobe," Woollett's first work of importance. He was the brother of the William Walker who greatly increased the effect of etching by re-biting, and it is said that Woollett, when making use of the process, was wont to exclaim, "Thank you, William Walker."62 Woollett lived in London all his life in the neighbourhood of Rathbone Place, where, when he had finished a plate, he used to celebrate the event by firing a cannon from the roof of his house; he died in 1785, and a tablet63 was placed to his memory in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

William Sharp was the son of a gunmaker in the Minories, where he was born in 1749, and afterwards apprenticed to Barak Longmate, a notable heraldic engraver, with whom Sharp's first essay as an apprentice was engraving pewter pots. Sharp completed the plate of West's "Landing of Charles II.," left unfinished by Woollett at his death, while many will know one of his finest works, the "Doctors of the Church," after Guido. Although he never left England, his prints were celebrated throughout Europe; he was elected honorary member of the Imperial Academy at Vienna and of the Royal Academy at Munich, but like Woollett, Strange, and Hall, was not recognised by the English Royal Academy. His religious and political views were peculiar, and being considered a dangerous character, he was summoned before the Privy Council, where at length, annoyed by repeated and, as he considered, irrelevant questions, Sharp is said to have deliberately pulled out of his pocket a prospectus of his engraving of the celebrated Polish general and patriot Kosciusko, and handing it to the council, requested their names as subscribers; this and his frank manner relieved him from the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself placed. Sharp also engraved a portrait of Richard Brothers – a fanatic whose prophecies and writings excited attention at the time – with the title of "Prince of the Hebrews," and wrote underneath: "Fully believing this to be the man whom God has appointed, I engrave his likeness." Though successful and industrious in his art, Sharp died in comparative poverty in the year 1824 at Chiswick.

Among other distinguished men who worked in line during this period must be mentioned James Heath, Anker Smith, John Keyse Sherwin, Francis Legat, Thomas Morris – a pupil of Woollett's – who engraved the fine views of the Monument, seen from Fish Street Hill, and St. Paul's Cathedral from Ludgate Hill, and lastly the unfortunate William Wynne Ryland, who engraved the portraits of George III. and Lord Bute, which Strange had refused to undertake, and who, though of greater eminence in line, is credited with bringing into notice in England the stipple manner of engraving. Ryland finally ended an adventurous career by being hanged for forging two bills on the East India Company, and by his death – notwithstanding all efforts to obtain a reprieve – justified words used in relation to the event: "Popes and monarchs have pardoned men who had committed crimes of the deepest dye – even murder – in consideration of their talents as artists; but Ryland lived in England, the land of trade and commerce, and had committed an offence against the laws of money, the god of its idolatry." Nor during the history of this period ought the names of Thomas Worlidge, David Deuchar, and the ingenious Captain Baillie to be omitted; Worlidge in the early part, and Deuchar at the close of the century, etched each in his own style with precision and effect, while William Baillie, an Irishman and retired cavalry officer (born 1723, died 1810), etched and worked in mezzotint with equal happiness and success.

William Blake (born 1757), poet, engraver, and painter, stands alone. In engraving – the laborious art by which he was content to live – he has executed admirable works, apart from his own peculiar methods, both in line, as shown in the portrait of Lavater, and in stipple, as in the "Industrious Cottager," after Morland; as poet and painter he has left songs and designs which, if soaring higher than men can follow, or even his own powers of hand and mind sufficiently express, remain for ever to arouse the wonder and excite the imagination of posterity. Though he lived in poverty, and oppressed with cares, he was always cheerful and beloved by all who knew him intimately; he was ever at work while life lasted, and died in 1827, as he had lived, a righteous and happy man. He was laid in Bunhill Fields burying-ground, but the spot where he was buried is marked by no tombstone, nor can it now be actually identified; but who that has looked at the portrait engraved by Jeens from Linnell's wondrous miniature can ever forget the face of the poet, engraver, and painter, William Blake?