Early Modern European Engravings and Etchings, 1400–1700

Making multiple images from a print matrix basically began in tandem with the the use of the printing press during the later 15th century; however, a different press had to be developed to print ink from grooves produced on a metal matrix rather than from an inked surface ridge, as with printed letters or woodblock lines in relief. In whatever way that linework is produced in the metal (usually copper), the general name of this kind of printmaking is intaglio, and the plate surface is wiped. In engraving, produced with a gouging instrument called a burin, the resulting printed lines produce a slightly raised surface of dried ink. In etching, finer but also more maneuverable lines are achieved by scratching onto a waxlike prepared surface called a ground, so that when the plate is submerged in an acid bath, the ground resists biting and only the scratches produce lines on the plate once the ground has been removed to expose the surface. An etched ground also permits covering up some lines and rebiting others in a process called ”stopping out,” which reinforces the exposed lines so that darker tones can be produced from the further action of the acid. Engravings completely dominated the production of intaglio prints from their origins in the mid-15th century, but the manual skill required to use a burin for lines in metal usually required the same extended apprentice training as for a goldsmith. However, once safe and replicable etching techniques had emerged, early in the 16th century, artists without such specialized craft skills could begin to make intaglio prints in the newer method. By the 17th century, while some trained engraving specialists still produced virtuoso prints, often emphasizing the calligraphic beauty of their linework, the dominant medium for intaglio prints clearly shifted to etching. Another important development, first in Italy (especially Rome) but later highly developed in the Netherlands (especially Antwerp) as well, found specialist, professional printmakers, often doubling as print publishers, taking drawn designs by nonspecialist artists and converting them into engravings. Large printmaking firms, akin to book publishers, provided an alternative way for painters (including Titian, Bruegel, and Rubens, among others) to circulate their images as engraved reproductions. Finally, the advent of color printing through the use of multiple plates for each tone first emerged for multiblock woodcuts during the 16th century, a time when intaglio prints were hand-colored by well-paid specialist painters (called Briefmaler in Germany). But later centuries brought more technical innovations for intaglio plates to simulate the effects of drawings. Those new techniques, particularly aquatint and mezzotint during the 18th century, mark a major expansion of printmaking effects, so this transitional moment marks the effective end of this study of early intaglios, from the mid-15th century through the 17th century. Given the limitations of the Oxford Online Bibliography series, this list must necessarily remain selective.