160 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1891. 



Mr. Jas. J). Sm-illie, K. A.; tecliiiical ilhistiations of several plioto-me- 

 chanical processes, to wit, the pboto-aquatiut process (prej)ared for tlie 

 Museum by tlie ]Sre\v York Photogravure C-ompany) the zinc-etching 

 I)rocess for line work, the wash-out gelatine process, and a half-tone 

 process involving the use of line screens (these three prepared for the 

 Museum by the Ncav York Engraving and Printing Company), a set of 

 wood blocks, with the progressive proofs from them, of a chromoxylo- 

 graph by Gubitz, of Berlin, one of the earliest specimens of this kind 

 X)roduced in the nineteenth century, and a number of impressions from 

 plates and blocks engraved by artists of past centuries, illustrating 

 various processes, but more especially the development of color-print- 

 ing. A beginning has also been made, thanks to the generosity of 

 Messrs. F. W. Devoe »& Co., of New York, and Mr. M. Falconer, of 

 Brooklyn, in the formation of a collection of artists' tools and materials. 



The labeling of the specimens on exhibition has been continued, and 

 the cataloguing of the Osborne collection (see x^revious re|)orts) has at 

 last been accomi)lished. A beginning has also been made with the 

 cataloguing of the collection of patents. The i)rogressto be recorded, 

 owing to lack of time and of facilities, is not, hoAvever, as satisfactory 

 as might be desired. 



The time has hardly arrived for making special researches upon 

 material belonging to the Section of Graphic Arts. The acquisi- 

 tion, however, of a couple of specimens of the so-called '^ manilre crih- 

 /ee" cuts, has made it possible to illustrate this interesting subject intel- 

 ligently, and to enforce the conclusion arrived at by me some time ago, 

 that these cuts are really white-line and tint Avork of a very rude kind, 

 but in principle identical Avith the refined Avork of the most advanced 

 wood engravers of our own day. These conclusions have been embod- 

 ied in a paper entitled " White-line Engraving for Eelief printing in 

 the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries," jmblished, with illustrations, 

 in the Museum Eeport for 1800. 



The last number entered on the catalogue of the Section of Graphic 

 Arts for the year ending June 30, 1890, having been 3,471, and the cor- 

 responding number for the year now under review being 4,797, it follows 

 that the number of entries during the year has been 1,320. As many 

 of these entries, however, comprise more than one si)ecimeu, it Avill be 

 safe to say that the total number of sijecimens represented by them is 

 between 1,400 and 1,500. But this number does not give the absolutely 

 new accessions of the year, as it includes the entries, to the number of 

 952, of the Osborne collection, which was receiA^ed and reported among 

 the accessions several years ago. The entries representing absolutely 

 new material are, therefore, reduced to 374. The duplicates of the 

 Osborne collection, consisting of specimens of photo-mechanical i)rocess 

 Avork, haA^e been laid aside, but not yet catalogued. 



The Bibliography (Section iv) contains notices of the pajjers, etc, 

 published by me during the year. 



