A Chapter on English Engraving. By William Walker
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. Paul51 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 Rupert52 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 Spagnoletto53 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 black54
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?
Before speaking of the branch of engraving known by the name of stipple, it would be well to say a few words as to the mode of printing in colour, so prevalent at one time, and of the connection which the works of Kirkall had in relation to the method. Edward Kirkall, born at Sheffield in the year 1722, published a set of plates, in the printing of which he made use both of mezzotint and etching on copperplate combined with wood blocks (that is to say, one printing was from a copperplate, the remainder from wood blocks), in order to give variety of colour to a set of chiaroscuros and other engravings which he executed at that time. His plan differed from that of Leblond in that he used only one copperplate printing, the other tints being given by wood blocks; the results were interesting and effective, partaking more of the character of chiaroscuros, the name he himself gave to them. Apart from the failure of Leblond to realise his ingenious idea that, by the consecutive and proper superposition of three layers of primitive colours, every shade of colour might be produced in the print, there still remained another fatal defect in the process: all his colours were impressed by copperplate printing, that is, he made use of three plates successively printed one after the other on the same sheet of paper. Now a person who can realise the heavy pressure under which a copperplate has to pass so as to force it into the damp paper, in order that the paper should extract the ink from the grain in which it is held, will be able to see that the second and third printing—no matter how accurate the register—must crush the grain or burr given to the paper by the previous printing and thus destroy the beauty of the engraver’s work. Notwithstanding the really remarkable results produced by Leblond, this fatal imperfection mars all the engravings he has left executed in this manner. The copperplates which were printed in colour and carried to such perfection, particularly in England, about the close of the eighteenth century, were printed from one plate, generally executed in stipple, and the various tints or colours carefully rubbed in by the printer, who used for this purpose a sort of stump instead of the ordinary dabber. Whatever artistic harmony in colour might be produced was therefore partially the work, and to the credit of the printer; the printed impressions were in addition generally touched up afterwards, and in some cases almost entirely coloured by hand. Every impression printed in colours necessarily varies; some are really exquisite in their delicacy of tone and assemblage of shades, while others are contemptible in their staring vulgarity. Kirkall engraved an elaborate ornamental form on which to give a receipt to his subscribers for these engravings; one of which, running thus, “Receipt from Sir Hans Sloane of one guinea as part payment for twelve prints in chiaroscuro which he (Kirkall) promises to deliver when finished on payment of one guinea more,” can be seen at the British Museum, and will give some idea of the moderate remuneration artists of those days were content to receive for their valuable labour.
The rise of stipple as a separate style took place in the middle of the eighteenth century, and although the coming of Bartolozzi to England gave it so great an impetus, it is necessary to point out that the works of the school which goes by his name by no means show the capabilities of the method. The aim of Bartolozzi and his followers was essentially prettiness; to this all their efforts tended, and for this stipple was a convenient medium. The very printing in red, recently so popular, is barbarous in its ineffectiveness, plates so printed being deprived of a great part of their proper ranges of light and shade. The more serious work in this method was accomplished by other engravers, of whom may be specially mentioned Thomas Gaugain, Anthony Cardon, Caroline Watson, and, later on in the present century, William Walker, who carried the style to the highest point ever reached or likely to be reached. Engraving in stipple—that is, putting dots into the plate in place of lines—was, however, no new invention; from early times line engravers had placed dots in the interstices of their crossed lines to give solidity and greater effect. Ottavio Leoni, a Roman painter, had used the method freely in a set of plates of distinguished artists, which he engraved in the years 1621ndash;5, executing the heads, with the exception of the hair, entirely in stipple; and early in the century French engravers made use of the same means to give effect to many of their flesh textures. The crayon style of engraving introduced by Demarteau, and the feeble English manner known as chalk, which had only a limited reign, are but modifications of the style.
Francesco Bartolozzi, the life-long friend of Cipriani (born in 1725 at Florence), was educated in engraving at Venice by Joseph Wagner, and like Cipriani, who had preceded him, came over to England in 1764. His reputation was already established there; he was appointed engraver to the king with a salary of £300 a year, became one of the first forty full members of the Royal Academy (1768), and was the only engraver admitted to the honour down to the year 1855. Bartolozzi remained in England for thirty-eight years, continuously producing his innumerable and well-known plates; at length, in 1802, seduced by the offer of a house, pension, and a knighthood, he went, at the age of seventy-seven, to Lisbon, where he died in 1815, having reached his ninety-first year, and working at his profession to the last. John Ogborn, Cheesman, Thomas Ryder, Chapman, Agar, T. Burke, and the delightful P. W. Tomkins—who, with the late C. H. Jeens, may be called the miniaturist of engravers—were all followers more or less of his school. An admirable draughtsman and perfect master of the graver, Bartolozzi was in addition able to infuse a certain grace and beauty into the trivial work by which he is best known; but he has done work of a higher stamp, and some of his line engravings, such as “Clytie,” the “Death of Dido,” the portraits of Lord Thurlow and Martin van Juchen in full armour (worthy of the graver of Pontius or De Jode), make all who care for the art regret that so talented an artist gave the greater part of his time and attention to producing prints which, though graceful and pleasing, charm but for the moment and leave no permanent impression.
This, the Augustan era of English engraving, saw also the rise of the talented and genial Thomas Bewick (born 1753, died 1828), who made the domain of natural history his own, and in addition to executing some interesting copper plates, has by his exquisite wood-cuts after his own drawings entitled England to claim her place amongst the greatest artists in that form of engraving. The Boydells, too, had established their celebrated firm; both were engravers, John in line, and Josiah, his nephew (a pupil of Earlom), in mezzotint. John Boydell was born in 1719, and established himself first (in 1752) at the sign of the “Unicorn,” corner of Queen Street, Cheapside, afterwards at 90 Cheapside, and finally took additional premises in Pall Mall for the Shakespeare Gallery. Josiah was born in 1752, succeeded on his uncle’s death (1804) to the business, and died in 1817. A great proportion of the best prints of this period will be found to bear the addresses of these famous publishers and engravers.
The last years of the eighteenth and the commencement of the present century witnessed the death of many of the famous engravers already mentioned. It was now that the Birmingham school of line arose, and, urged by the influence of J. M. W. Turner, executed their delicate line engravings after that famous painter. William Radelyffe was the founder of this school, and was followed by his son Edward, Robert Brandard, J. T. Willmore, E. Goodall, R. Wallis, William Miller, and others. Sharp, Anker Smith, James Heath, Earlom, Dickinson, Young, and J. R. Smith still remained for a time, but much of their best work was already done. William Ward, apprenticed to J. R. Smith, his brother James, the noted animal painter, Charles Turner and Samuel William Reynolds had also appeared to carry on and bring to its fullest development the great British school of mezzotint. William Ward, born in 1766, by his series of engravings after George Morland—whose sister he married—has made the names of the painter and engraver almost indissoluble, each having contributed to the immortality of the other. James, the painter and Royal Academician, born in 1769, studied under his brother, with whom he served an apprenticeship of nearly nine years; his plates of “Cornelius the Centurion” after Rembrandt, Sir Joshua’s “Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia,” and the studies after nature of heads and feet of ducks, ducklings, geese, and calves, are among the finest works executed in the method. James lived to a great age, dying in 1859 in his ninety-first year, having survived his brother and also a nephew, William James Ward. The last-named was likewise a good mezzotint engraver, but unfortunately died in the prime of life in the year 1840.
Charles Turner was born in the same year as S. W. Reynolds (1773), and survived the latter by more than twenty years; his prints are very numerous, and comprise a great variety of subjects. The large upright mezzotint of Sir Joshua’s group of the Marlborough family, with the two younger children in front, one holding a mask, the other shrinking back in fright, is deservedly well known, as is also his fine rendering of “The Shipwreck” after J. M. W. Turner, published in 1807. Other characteristic prints which may be mentioned are “Black and Red Game,” after Elmer; “Pheasants,” after Barenger; the portraits of “Alexandra, Empress of Russia,” after Monier; “Lord Newton,” after Raeburn; and a marvellous life-size head of Salvator Rosa’s “St. Francis,” engraved in 1805. Turner lived till the year 1857, when he died at his house in Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, at the age of eighty-three.
Samuel William Reynolds, one of the most gifted men who ever applied themselves to the engraver’s art, studied mezzotint under C. H. Hodges; he commenced his comparatively short career both as painter and engraver, and exhibited for several years at the British Institution. Endowed with singular powers of fascination, Reynolds seems to have attracted and kept fast the friendship of all with whom he became acquainted, irrespective of their particular social surroundings. Samuel Whitbread, the distinguished Member of Parliament, of old Drury Lane Theatre renown, was his intimate and kindest friend; Sheridan and Edmund Kean played at Pope Joan with his daughters, and the very printer of his plates fifty years after Reynolds’ death would grow bright when recalling his memory, saying, “He was the prince of engravers.” He gave lessons in drawing to the daughters of George III., who wished to make him their equerry, and afterwards an important post with a salary of £900 a year was offered him, but both these offers were refused.
It is from the technical skill and firm daring which Reynolds displayed in his prints, and the intelligent use he made of the means at his command, that his name as an engraver remains pre-eminent; the “Falconer,” “Vulture and Snake,” “Heron and Spaniel,” and “Leopards” after Northcote; the “Duchess of Bedford” after Hoppner; the “regal” whole-length of the unfortunate Princess Charlotte; the large and exquisitely finished etching from Rembrandt’s famous picture of “The Mill;” and the “Land Storm”—known also as the “Mail Coach in a Storm”—after George Morland, are but a few of the many prints which show the power and versatility of the engraver. In the last-named print (published 1798), where the resources of mezzotint and etching combined have been used to fullest purpose, the familiar identity of the painter has been almost hidden under the massive effects of light and shade shown in the landscape, where amidst lightning flash and rushing wind the terror-stricken horses are seen dashing madly onward.
When Reynolds went to Paris in 1826, artists there were astonished at his paintings and the effects that he produced. Sixdeniers and Maile studied with him, and several plates bear their combined names; unfortunately both these engravers, excellent as they were as mezzotinters, chiefly engraved after painters whose productions partook of a frivolous and somewhat free character. Reynolds, however, left more permanent marks of his stay in the French capital by executing there the large plates of Géricault’s “Wreck of the Medusa,” Horace Vernet’s “Mazeppa,” and the masterly representations of Charlet’s characteristic types, the “Village Barber” and the “Rag Picker.” In the last two the technical handling is so free that it would almost seem as if the scraper had been used with the same facility as chalk on paper. In reference to this there is a story extant that Reynolds once scraped a large whole-length portrait in a day and a night; the story is true, but it is also true that it is one of his worst plates.
Shortly before his death Reynolds was greatly struck with Constable’s picture of “The Lock,” and resolved to engrave it at his own cost; writing to Constable on the arrival of the picture, he says:—“I have been before your picture for the last hour. It is no doubt the best of your works true to nature, seen and arranged with a professor’s taste and judgment. The execution shows in every part a hand of experience; masterly without rudeness, and complete without littleness; the colouring is sweet, fresh, and healthy; bright not gaudy, but deep and clear. Take it for all in all, since the days of Gainsborough and Wilson no landscape has been painted with so much truth and originality, so much art, so little artifice.” But he did not live to fulfil his intention, for while still full of hope and high purpose for the future, Reynolds was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and died at his house in Bayswater in the year 1835. This sudden ending was the cause of his son—likewise named Samuel William—forsaking painting to finish some of his father’s plates, and ultimately continuing with success the practice of mezzotint on his own account. Reynolds’ daughter Elizabeth, who married the stipple engraver William Walker—though chiefly known by her miniatures and other paintings—also engraved in early life.64 Although there are no authentic records of the pedigree, S. W. Reynolds always asserted his collateral relationship to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his son often mentioned that his father, when quite a youth, called on Sir Joshua, who, during the conversation that ensued, remarked to Reynolds, “Then you are my cousin.”
Other engravers of eminence that flourished during this period are, in line, the Bromleys, John Landseer and his sons, Charles Heath, William B. Cooke and his brother George65 John Burnet (celebrated as painter, engraver, and author), Richard Golding, and John Scott; in stipple, William Bond, Thomas Woolnoth, and James Hopwood; in mezzotint, Henry Dawe, William Say, Henry Meyer, George Clint, and his pupil Thomas Lupton, who, for his introduction of soft steel instead of copper as the medium for mezzotint engraving, received in 1822 the gold Isis medal from the Society of Arts.
The method of stipple was meanwhile slowly dying out, but, as often happens when some particular art seems about to expire, this was the very time when the capabilities of the style were shown in the highest perfection. William Walker, born in Musselburgh in the year 1791, served an apprenticeship to three engravers, Mitchell, Stewart, and Thomas Woolnoth, and choosing stipple as his method of interpretation, in his portraits of Sir Walter Scott, Raeburn, and the Earl of Hopetoun, justified his choice by executing the finest works that were ever accomplished in the style. He astonished the mezzotinters of the period—who told him that, do what he could, he would never make stipple equal mezzotint in colour66—by the amount of force, colour, and effect which he was able to give to these plates. It is needless to say that such work as this could only be accomplished at the expense of intense energy and persevering labour, qualities which were the essential characteristics of the Scotch engraver. Later on, when settled in London, and more particularly after the introduction of steel in place of copper, Walker chiefly practised mezzotint, in which, however, he made use of his previous experience, etching his subject first in stipple before laying the mezzotint ground. His plate of Burns, engraved in mezzotint by himself and Mr. Cousins, owes a great part of its renown to Walker’s power of rendering likeness; in regard to this, the painter Alexander Nasmyth remarked, on seeing the finished print, “that all he could say was that it seemed to him a better likeness of the poet than his own picture.” This particular quality of fidelity in likeness Walker carried out in all his after historical works; for this purpose no trouble was too much, no labour too severe; the engraving of the “Distinguished Men of Science assembled at the Royal Institution in 1807ndash;8,” which occupied a period of six years of unceasing research and labour, is a striking instance. This was practically his last plate. He died at the age of seventy-six, in the year 1867, at his house in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, and was buried at Brompton Cemetery.
The death of Reynolds in 1835 seems to mark roughly the closing period of English engraving as a great art; two of his most renowned pupils were, however, still in the fulness of power, David Lucas and the present Mr. Samuel Cousins, R.A.67 Of Mr. Cousins, it is sufficient to relate that Reynolds, happening one day to be in the town of Exeter, saw some drawings in a shop window which caught his eye, and on going inside he learnt that they were by a lad of the name of Cousins, which incident led to Reynolds taking the youth to London and keeping him as his apprentice. Mr. Cousins’ artistic genius, steady perseverance, and sterling integrity in all that he undertook, brought their full results, as shown in the fine series of mezzotint engravings so widely known and highly appreciated, and his name may indeed be said to close worthily the long line of great British mezzotinters.
David Lucas was born in the year 1802, and had the good fortune to meet in early life with Constable, between whom and Lucas was formed that intimate connection of painter and engraver which in earlier times had led to such great results. Failing Reynolds, Constable had applied to Lucas to be his engraver, and between them was completed the beautiful mezzotint series of English landscape; Constable bore the expense and was ever in counsel with the engraver, going into the minutest details, thinking no trouble too much to produce a good result, down to the printing of the plates, which they often did themselves, Lucas having had a press erected at his house for the purpose. The execution of this series led to Lucas undertaking the large plate of “The Cornfield” at his own risk, and afterwards the companion picture of “The Lock”—referred to before—finally culminating in his production of the superb engraving of Salisbury Cathedral as seen from the meadows, to which Constable himself gave the name of “The Rainbow.”68 During all this period constant intercourse and correspondence took place between the painter and engraver. At one time, Constable writes, “Although much admired, Salisbury is still too heavy; the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity not gaiety, yet it must be bright, clear, alive, fresh, and all the front seen.” At another, “The bow is a grand whole, provided it is clear and tender; how I wish I could scratch and tear away with your tools on the steel, but I can’t do it, and your quiet way is I know the best and only way.” At length comes, “Dear Lucas, the print is a noble and beautiful thing entirely improved and entirely made perfect; the bow is noble, it is startling, unique.” So hand-in-hand they worked on, the painter upbearing his helpmate the engraver, each aiding the other, little noticed by the public at the time, but slowly building up an imperishable fame. David Lucas died in 1881 in his eightieth year.
In the middle of the century, inartistic mixture of styles, mechanical means replacing true work, exigencies of copyright, and above all the complete severance of the engraver not only from the painter but also from his only rightful patron the public, had worked its sure result. Some good men survived, such as Lewis, Atkinson, Doo, Robinson, J. H. Watt, R. Graves, J. Posselwhite, Lumb Stocks, Henry Cousins69 W. Giller, J. R. Jackson, and a few others; but no young school had been forming to replace those dying out, and everything presaged the gradual extinction of engraving as one of the great arts. Has this lowest point been reached? Perhaps, as with the beautiful art of miniature painting, which for a time on the advent of photography seemed gone for ever, yet still like some stream was only running on in hidden course underground to appear again and reach daylight, so may it happen with engraving.
Within the last few years two engravers have produced prints worthy of any period of the art, the late C. H. Jeens and the present Mr. W. H. Sherborne. Some of the stipple miniature book illustrations which Jeens executed for Messrs. Macmillan and others, such as the gem medallions of Plato and Socrates, “Love and Death,” Woolner’s “Beautiful Lady,” the portraits of Allan Ramsay, Charles Young, Mr. Ruskin’s two Aunts, and above all William Blake, are engraved with the tender feeling and fine touch of the true artist. Mr. Sherborne, born in 1832, probably little known except by the few, originally a chaser and designer for jewellers and pupil of Pietro Gerometti, the Roman cameo engraver and medallist, in 1872, fired by hope and love of the art, forsook his own branch to follow that of engraving. Like all true artists, his mode of execution is his own. Apollo, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1881, the head of Mr. Seymour Haden, the portraits of Phelps the Chelsea Waterman or Mrs. James Builth, and the interiors of Westminster Abbey, seen at the Painter-Etchers’ Exhibition in the summer of 1885, are works that will last, and are good examples of the engraver’s powers, causing regret that Mr. Sherborne had not earlier turned his attention to an art the beauty of which he so truly feels. While engraving as a whole was decaying, one branch, that of etching, has been undergoing a revival, and the names of Mr. Seymour Haden, Mr. Philip Hamerton, and Mr. Whistler are world-known. They and their school have confined themselves to producing their own designs, while others, like Mr. David Law, Mr. Macbeth, and the Messrs. Slocombe, also translate the works of painters. But, whether as a vehicle for conveying an original design or translating that of another artist, etching is strictly limited in its powers; it bears the same relation to the full art of engraving as sketching or drawing does to that of perfect painting; suggestive, capable of exhibiting broad effects of light and shade, or indicative of the idiosyncrasy of the etcher, it is, of its very nature, incomplete, and acts but as herald to proclaim the greater results to be obtained by following out the art to its proper goal.
The great impetus which Bewick’s genius gave to the art of wood engraving at the commencement of the present century was carried onwards by his distinguished pupils Luke Clennell, Charlton Nesbitt, and William Harvey, the latter of whom, in 1821, cut the large block of the death of Dentatus (15 in. × 11¼ in.) from the picture of the erratic genius B. R. Haydon, under whom he was at that time studying drawing. Robert Branston, John Thompson and his brother Charles70 Jackson, and W. J. Linton, are names of equal renown; in fact, during the first half of the century, England may be said to have been supreme in the art. Gradually, however, the various mechanical processes for facilitating the commercial extension of the art such as electrotyping71 photography, &c., brought here, too, their deteriorating effects, causing the engraver to become less of an artist and more of a mechanic. In delicacy of work and elaboration of detail, American artists now stand first among wood engravers; but they attempt too much with the means at their command, and try to produce upon the comparatively soft material, wood, the delicate fineness of line which can only be realised in perfection on metal. The extreme closeness of the lines, combined with the exigencies of rapid surface printing, dull more or less the minute interstices which ought to show pure white; effect is lost, and, notwithstanding the excellence of the workmanship, the result becomes monotonous and wearying rather than pleasurable to the satiated eye. In etching also America takes high rank; in addition to Mr. Whistler, the names of Messrs. J. Gadsby Chapman, Gifford, Duveneck, F. S. Church, Pennell, Stephen Parrish, and Mr. and Mrs. Moran, are well known in Europe.
In the complete styles of engraving, stipple, line, and mezzotint, although American engravers are little known out of their own country—a large enough field, however, in which to exercise their talents—some good work has also been done; in stipple, by David Edwin, Ion. B. Forrest, Gimbrede, and C. Tiebout; in mezzotint, by Charles Wilson Peale, A. H. Ritchie, and John Sartain, who, after having worked under the direction of William Young Ottley, went from London to America in 1830 at the age of twenty-two; and in line, by Asher Brown Durand; Joseph Andrews; the Smillies; and Charles Burt, who is said to have been the actual engraver of the fine plate of Leonardo’s “Last Supper,” copied from Morghen’s print of the same subject, and bearing the name of A. L. Dick as engraver. The lives of these and others not mentioned were often eventful and picturesque, and would repay study. Some leaving England, Scotland, or Ireland in early life to settle in the land of their adoption, had to struggle with difficulties, often teach themselves, make their own tools, like John Cheney, or like Charles Wilson Peale, turn their hands to whatever duty might present itself. Peale was a captain of volunteers, dentist, lecturer on natural history, saddler, watchmaker, silversmith, painter in oil, crayons, or in miniature on ivory, modeller in clay and wax, engraver in mezzotint, and to crown all, as his son was wont to say, a mild, benevolent, and good man. Many also devoted their talents to bank-note engraving, a branch of the art highly cultivated in the United States, in which the skill of the inventor and mechanic has been united with the grace and genius of the artist. As engravers in this particular style may be specially mentioned W. E. Marshall, J. W. Casilear, M. J. Danforth, Gideon Fairman, and Jacob Perkins, the latter of whom, with Fairman and the ingenious Asa Spencer, came over to England in 1818 to compete for the premium of £20,000 offered by the Bank of England for a bank-note which could not be counterfeited. Although not successful, the Bank allowed them the sum of £5,000 in consideration of their ingenuity and the trouble and expense which they had incurred in the matter. While Asa Spencer is to be credited with inventing the method of applying the geometric lathe72 to engraving the involved patterns on banknotes, Perkins has the honour of introducing the process of transfer by means of steel rollers. The portrait or other design is engraved in the usual manner on a die plate, which is then hardened; a soft steel roller or cylinder is now rolled over the die with great pressure by means of a powerful machine, causing the cylinder to take off in its course the impression of the design in relief; this roller is now hardened in its turn, and by the use of similar means made to impress another soft steel die; by repeating this process, any requisite number of plates can thus be reproduced the exact fac-similes of the original engraved die plate. Owing to the mechanical necessity that only a small surface of the roller should press on the die at a given moment, the diameter of the cylinder requires to be small, so that several of these dies, and consequently of the rollers, will be required to complete the entire plate from which the ultimate printing of the note is effected.
Finally it may be well to conclude this brief account of the British school of engraving by calling attention to the considerations which ought to govern buyers of engravings; buy only that which gives real personal satisfaction, distrust a seller’s inducements, in price be ruled by the amount that can be justly afforded, reject alluring thoughts of future money gain (or be prepared to pay the sure penalty—destruction of natural artistic feeling and hope of further cultivation), and ever bear in mind the words of Constable to his engraver: “Tone, tone, my dear Lucas, is the most seductive and inviting quality a picture or print can possess; it is the first thing seen, and like a flower, invites to the examination of the plant itself.”73
*** The writer of the Chapter on English Engraving desires to acknowledge the facilities kindly placed at his disposal by Mr. Sidney Colvin, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, and to express his recognition of the valuable aid afforded him by Mr. F. M. O’Donoghue, of the same department.