1887.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 711 



Special Frame ou Screen 7, in corridor. — No. 117, John Sartain, 

 Philadelphia. Several of the specimens exhibited show the combina- 

 tion of etching and mezzotint. (See also No. 80, by Turner.) In this 

 last example still other methods, such as stippling, have also been 

 largely used. 



5. DRY POINT. 



Dry-point work is executed upon the bare plate, generally pure copper, 

 by a steel point, held like a pencil. It is, indeed, simply scratching on 

 copper. A scratch thus made does not remove the metal, but turns it 

 over alongside the furrow, producing a ridge, which rises above the 

 plate, and is called the bur. This bur retains the ink when the plate is 

 wiped after inking, and causes the rich velvety blacks, characteristic of 

 most dry-point plates. When these blacks are not wanted, the bur can 

 be removed by scraping, and in that cisc the ink is retained only by 

 the farrows. There are, therefore, two kinds of dry-point work, with 

 bur and without bur. 



Dry-pointing is probably as old as engraving, bat the first artist of 

 very great note to use it extensively was Rembrandt. There is no spec- 

 imen of his work in pure dry point in this exhibition, but he used it 

 largely in connection with etching ou the *' Christ Preaching," No. 58. 



Frame 25. — No. 118, Chas. Storm Van's Grravesantle, Brussels. No. 

 119, Miss 31. Louise McLaughlin, Cincinnati. No. 120, C. A. Vander- 

 hoof, New York. No. 121, William H. Lippincott. In this last case the 

 bur has been scraped off almost entirely. 



6. AQUATINT. 



This is an etching process, originally invented to imitate India ink 

 and sepia washes, but carried beyond this by some engravers. A per- 

 forated ground is laid upon the plate, either by powdering it with rosin 

 and heating this until the particles adhere to the metal, but without 

 allowing them to flow into one another, or by floating it with a solution 

 of rosin in alcohol and allowing it to dry, which causes the coating left 

 behind to crackle. The acid works around the particles or through the 

 fissures, and the depth of tint required is regulated by the length of 

 exposure. The inventor of aquatint is believed to have been Jean Ba])- 

 tiste Le Prince (1733-1781), although it has also been assigned to his 

 friend, the Abbe de Saint Nou. 



Frame 26.— Nos. 122 (1768) and 123 (1770), J. B. Le Prince. No. 

 124:, Maria Catharina Prestel (1711-1791). No. 125, Henriquel-Dupont, 



