I think there is some confusion here about steel and wood engravings.
The illustrations for the great age of nineteenth century illustrated
periodicals, e.g. Frank Leslie's Illustrated News, Harper's Weekly,
Illustrated London News, were generally provided by wood engravings;
Winslow Homers wood engravings for Harpers Weekly are especially well
documented. The engravings were made on boxwood and a number of smaller
blocks were generally put together to make the larger full page printing
block. However, the actual blocks were rarely used in the print process.
It would have been unwise to use the original woodblock, which was labor
intensive to create. Instead, an electrotype was made of the original
block, and the electrotype was used in the printing process. An
electrotype allowed for a nearly infinite number of impressions, and if
wore down another could be easily made. This also allowed for multiple
presses to make copies of the same engraving. The printing surface was
metal, but it was not a steel engraving - which is not to say that there
were not tons of steel engravings in books and some journals, but as a
rule not for the popular illustrated journals of the second half of the
nineteenth century.
Ken Soehner
-----Original Message-----
From: ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY DISCUSSION LIST [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Stan Shiebert
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ARLIS-L] Victorian engravings thank you
Thanks to everyone who replied to my query about popular Victorian
engravings. If I may quote Robert Garzillo:
The general rule about mass produced engravings, like the kind in
popular periodicals of the time, was that they were steel engravings.
The publisher could get many impressions with a steel engraving plate as
opposed to wood.
Stan
Stan Shiebert
Librarian
Arts, Recreation & Literature Department
Seattle Public Library
TEL: 206-386-4636
FAX: 206-386-4616
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