COPPER, STEEL, AND BANK-NOTE ENGRAVING 603 



gone almost entirely out of use, having been like engraving in 

 imitations of drawings in chalk or pencil in a great degree 

 superseded by lithography. 



Mezzotint is said to have been invented by Prince Rupert, 

 or by Leivis Siegen, a lieutenant in his service, in or about 

 the year ICll, and to have been 

 suggested by the rust on a weapon 

 which a soldier was cleaning. 



The plate is prepared (before any 

 design is made upon it) by means 

 of an instrument or tool called the 

 "rocker" (see Fig. 2). This "rock- 

 er" is rocked to and fro upon the 

 plate in all directions, and the teeth 

 in the sharp, beveled edge of the tool 

 make a small dent in the copper 

 or steel and raise a corresponding 

 "burr." The whole plate is gone 

 over with this instrument about 

 eighty times before it is in a fit con- 

 dition to be worked upon. When 

 sufficiently prepared it presents a 

 fine, soft-looking, and perfectly even 

 grain, and if in this state a proof is 



taken from it by the usual process of plate printing the result is 

 the richest possible black. 



On this plate, after a tracing has been transferred, the en- 

 graver goes to work, with tools called " scrapers " and " burnish- 

 ers," working from dark to light by removing the dents and 

 burrs, and exactly in proportion as he removes them the tint be- 

 comes paler and paler, those parts most smoothed being the light- 

 est and the part the least operated on producing the deepest shad- 

 ows. As the process is from dark to light, the engraver has to be 

 very cautious not to remove too much of his grain at once, for 

 once he has it too light it would be impossible to restore the color 

 without destroying the surrounding lights. He proceeds from 

 dark to half dark, from half dark to middle tint, from middle tint 

 to half light, and from half light to light. When the work is 

 good the result is soft and harmonious, well adapted to the inter- 

 pretation of some painters, but not of all. 



More than one hundred engravers in mezzotinto employed 

 themselves on the portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the best 

 of their works are now valued as the classics of the art which is 

 connected with the name of Reynolds, just as line engraving is 

 connected with that of Raphael. 



In engraving in " stipple," which was much in vogue in the 



Fig. -2. The Rocker. 



