ENGRAVING. 



ENGRAVING. 



680 



Herr J. D. Passavant, however, in a work recently issued (' Le 

 Peintre-Graveur,' Leipzic, 1860), seems once more to have restored the 

 discovery to the Germans. There are, he asserts (p. 192), in the 

 cabinets of Dresden and Munich proofs from nielli executed by German 

 ^ngravers, which leave little reason to doubt that the process of taking 

 impressions on paper from engraved plates was .practised in Germany 

 about 1440. But Herr Passavant calls attention to some recently- 

 discovered prints from plates engraved for the purpose of supplying 

 impressions on paper, of an earlier date than the impression from 

 Finneguerra's niello, and others earlier than any known Italian print. 

 The first series consists of a set of seven prints of the ' Passion," in 

 the possession of M. Renouvier of Montpellier. Only one of them is 

 dated. It represents the ' Flagellation of Our Saviour," and is inscribed 

 1446 : the execution is rude and archaic; the contours are strongly 

 marked ; and the slight indications of shadows are expressed by hatch- 

 ings, short and irregular in the flesh and the architectural details, but 

 longer in the draperies. A very superior style is exhibited in a print 

 (in the collection of Herr T. O. Weigel of Leipzic) of the ' Immaculate 

 Virgin," which bears the date 1451. Next in order of antiquity is a 

 series of 27 subjects from the ' Life of Christ,' now in the British 

 Museum, of which ' The Last Supper ' is dated 1457. These are the 

 oldest impressions known from engravings properly so called, and (with 

 at least one other dated 1458) they are all earlier than the first Italian 

 prints known, which are those of Baccio Baldini, and are believed to 

 have been executed in 1460. 



As regards the first of these prints, there can be no doubt that, 

 if Herr Passavant's description be correct, it is of a much earlier date 

 than the earliest known Italian engraving. Of the second we have 

 some doubt. A fac-simile of it was published in Naumann's ' Archiv." 

 for 1858, and if that is really a fac-simile it wears a very questionable 

 appearance. The drawing is not only, as Passavant observes, " refined, 

 and founded upon a nice observation of nature," and has " a certain 

 feeling of beauty," but the delicacy and the beauty have a much more 

 modern air than is at all usual in prints of a later date those of Martin 

 Schongauer, for instance. We should hardly think it possible Passavant 

 could be deceived as to the genuineness of the print, were he not a 

 German, and likely to look at it therefore with somewhat of national 

 prepossession. On the other hand, the fac-siinilist may not have 

 copied faithfully, and it is on the side of modern refinement he would 

 be likely to err. As to his third example, we believe (though he does 

 not say so) that he has not seen these prints of the Passion in the 

 British Museum collection. Probably he has obtained his knowledge 

 of them from Waagen, who, in his supplementary volume (' Galleries 

 of Art, &c., in Great Britain,' iv. 49), speaks of them as engravings from 

 metal plates. It is by no means certain, however, that they are printed 

 from metal plates. At the Museum they are placed among the early 

 German wood engravings. They are in fact little more than outlines, 

 and they have been so fully coloured that the ink is for the most part 

 hidden. At the best, from the mode then adopted for printing from 

 wood blocks, it is often very difficult, if not almost impossible, to deter- 

 mine whether a print is a woodcut or a copper-plate engraving ; and in 

 this instance it is not only rendered more than usually difficult by their 

 being coloured, but the difficulty is increased by their being printed on 

 vellum, so that no help can be got from examining the back of the 

 print. On the whole then we are disposed to place most reliance on 

 the oldest of these three prints, and if that be authentic it is of course 

 sufficient to sustain the priority of the Germans. 



Passavant, indeed, endeavours to show that the Italians acquired 

 the art from the German artists, who are known to have been in the 

 habit of visiting Italy at that time, and an imitation of whose manner 

 of working, he says, is easily traceable in the prints of the early Italian 

 engravers. It hardly seems necessary to resort to such an hypothesis, 

 since the Italians were not only excellent artists, but singularly expert 

 workers in niello ; and the engraving of plates for printing would 

 require very little modification of the process to which they were 

 accustomed. In the British Museum however may be seen a couple of 

 prints (of the existence of which Passavant takes no notice), which 

 show that the early Italian engravers were accustomed to look to 

 Germany for the materials of their art. The oldest of these two prints 

 is by the German master of 1 466, and is known as ' Our Lady of 

 Kinsidlen." The other is an anonymous Italian print of a ' Youth in 

 Armour," and is of the latter half of the 15th century. But the remark- 

 able circumstance about them is that both have been executed on the 

 same plate of metal, as Mr. Carpenter (the keeper of the drawings and 

 engravings) discovered when arranging the early Italian and German 

 collections. The earlier engraving of the Master of, 1466 had of course 

 been erased to make way for the Italian engraving ; but so imperfectly 

 was the erasure made, that portions of the inscription are plainly visible 

 on a careful examination of the surface of the later print. These two 

 engravings, with an admirable selection of rare and choice specimens of 

 the Italian and German engravers of the 15th to the 17th centuries, 

 and also several nielli, and caste and paper impressions from them, are 

 exhibited t/> the public in the centre of the King's Library. The 

 collection of engraving* at the British Museum, we may add, is 

 exceedingly rich in parly works, and in the choicest productions of the 

 beat engravers ; and the collection is admirably arranged : the portion 

 exhibited is birt a sample of the treasures stored up in the Print 

 I ."' ?' 



Our limits will not allow us to dwell on the merits or performances 

 of those early masters, contemporaries of Finneguerra, to whose exer- 

 tions we are nevertheless much indebted for the rapid approaches of 

 the art towards excellence. Of these, Baldini, Botticelli, and Andrea 

 Mantegna, have already been named among the Italians ; while among 

 the Germans, copper-plate engraving was very early and very greatly 

 improved by Martin Schbngauer, Israel Van Mecheln, Leydeuwurf, 

 Wolgemuth, &e. The success of the early German engravers is not 

 surprising when we recollect that wood engraving had been first practised 

 in that country forty years earlier, and consequently that they had 

 anticipated the Italians in a knowledge of printing-ink and the press ; 

 nay, it is remarkable that the first took printed at Rome (an edition of 

 Ptolemy's Geography) was also illustrated by the first plate engravings, 

 twenty-seven in number, which were maps, and were executed there 

 by two Germans, Sweynheym and Buckink ; the latter completing what 

 the former left unfinished at his death. This work is dated 1478, but 

 was commenced in 1472. 



One of the first books illustrated with designs on engraved plates 

 was indeed the production of Italian artists ; this was the work called 

 ' II Monte Sancto di Dio," published at Florence in 1477, and illustrated 

 with engravings by Baccio Baldini, ('Bartsch, Peintre-Gravure, vol. 13, 

 p. 189). An edition of Dante's ' Inferno," published at Florence in 

 1481, was also embellished with engravings by Baccio Baldini, after the 

 designs of Botticelli. It is worthy of remark that these plates were 

 not printed on the same paper as the letter-press, but blank spaces 

 were left at the head of each canto, over which the prints were 



Omitting farther notice of those early masters who flourished at 

 the end of the 15th, we shall pass on to the 16th century, at the 

 commencement of which the art was carried to a very high degree of 

 excellence ; in Italy by Marc Antonio Raimondi, and simultaneously 

 by Albert Durer in Germany, and Lucas Van Leyden in Holland : a 

 constellation of talent, the appearance of which marks the most 

 memorable epoch in the history of engraving. The great merit of 

 Marc Antonio lay in the correctness and beauty of his outline : so 

 great is his excellence in this respect, that it is believed that Raphael 

 himself assisted him with his own hand on the copper. The character 

 of his heads is admirably preserved, and the extremities marked with 

 the truest precision ; but his lights are not enriched with that variety 

 of fainter tones which indicate local colour, nor do his prints possess 

 the harmony arising from the chiaroscuro or the beauty of reflex light. 

 [RAIMONDI, MARC ANTONIO, IN BIOG. Dlv.] 



Our space will not allow even a list of the engravers and painters 

 who engraved or etched (a mode of engraving hereafter to be described) 

 who flourished in Italy during the two centuries which succeeded the 

 death of Marc Antonio : the principal of these however were 

 Agostino de Musis, Marc de Ravenna, Caraglio, Giulio Bonasoni, and 

 Enea Vico, all pupils of Marc Antonio ; Georgio Ghisi of Mantua and 

 his relatives Diana and Adam Ghisi, Cornelius Cort, &c. &c. But 

 although by these and others the executive part of the art was con- 

 tinually though slowly improved, their powers in design or drawing, 

 (in which the chief excellence of the school at all times consisted) 

 declined, at least as fast as they advanced in mechanical skill, until at 

 length in the 18th century the intellectual and mechanical excellences 

 of the art were united in the works of Jacomo Frey ; and from that 

 time the credit of engraving in Italy has been well maintained by 

 succeeding artists. The names of the principal painters who have 

 practised engraving in Italy are Agostino Carracci, Stephano della 

 Bella, Spagnoletto, Guercino, Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorraine, Swane- 

 veldt, Canaletti, Piranesi, &c. &c. 



In Germany engraving made more rapid strides towards excellence, 

 in the mechanical parts of it ; and at the commencement of the 

 16th century appeared Albert Diirer, a man whose universality of 

 talent extended the boundaries of every department of art, and carried 

 all to a degree of perfection previously unknown in that country. In 

 all that relates to the executive part of the art of engraving the works 

 of Albert Diirer deserve the highest praise. He carried his plates 

 indeed to a much higher degree of finish than his Italian contemporaries, 

 as his print of ' St. Jerome in the Room," as it is called, the execution 

 of which has scarcely ever been exceeded, will sufficiently attest. To 

 his other honours has been added that of being the inventor of etching 

 by corrosion, an art which has contributed most powerfully to the 

 perfection of engraving. This, however, is at least doubtful, as there 

 are prints in the British Museum (including one referred to by 

 Passavant, which we have ourselves examined) and in other collections, 

 of an earlier date than those of Diirer, which have all the appearance 

 of having been etched. The practice of engraving by erosion with an 

 acid was widely practised centuries earlier, and there can be little 

 doubt that its obvious utility would soon lead the engravers of plates 

 for printing to experiment upon its capabilities. But if not the dis- 

 coverer Diirer was one of the earliest practitioners of the art ; some of 

 the most celebrated etchings from his hand being the prints of ' Christ 

 praying on the Mount," 1515 ; the ' Rape of Proserpine," 1516 ; and the 

 ' Cannon Landscape," 1518. All these were evidently performed in 

 the very infancy of the art, before the discovery of stopping out, as it 

 is called, an expression which will be intelligible to the reader on a 

 reference to our account of the process of etching. On examining the 

 etchings of Albert Durer, we see that they have all been corroded at 



