The advantage of the etching lies in the fact that, 

 owing to the minuteness and freedom of the lines, it is 

 possible to produce most artistic effects. These qualities 

 especially appeal to the painter, and many of the great 

 painters have also been great etchers. Of the older 

 masters, Rembrandt and Van Dyck were famous for 

 their etchings; and in recent times such men as Whistler 

 and Seymour Haden have been great exponents of 

 this kind of engraving. 



MEZZOTINT 



There is another form of metal-engraving, called 

 mezzotint, which was invented in 1643 by Van Siegen, 

 a Dutchman, though erroneously ascribed to his pupil, 

 Prince Rupert. This is a mechanical process like the 

 copper-plate engraving rather than the etching, but in 

 which the line, made by a pointed instrument like the 

 burin, is not employed, the plate being prepared and 

 worked upon in a peculiar manner. To prepare a plate 

 for mezzotint work a peculiar instrument is used, this 

 instrument having the edge ground into the segment of a 

 circle, and so engraved as to present something like a hun- 

 dred minute teeth. When this "cradle " is pressed upon 

 the surface of copper and rocked back and forth, a great 

 number of minute dents will be made in the copper, 

 each dent, of course, raising a corresponding burr. 

 In preparing such a mezzotint plate the surface of the 

 copper must be worked over something like a hun- 

 dred times, the cradle being worked in different 

 directions. 



[196] 



