PRACTICAL NOTES 
 
 ON 
 
 R.S. CHAT TOOK 
 

 
 
 
 
 
'V- 
 
X 
 
 
BY 
 
 R. S. CHATTOCK 
 
 FELLOW OF THE SOCIETY OF PAINTER-ETCHERS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON 
 CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET 
 1883 
 
PRINTED BY J. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMI1ED, 
 CITY ROAD. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 Introduction 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I. Choosing the Plate . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II. Cleaning the Plate . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 III. The Etching Ground 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IV. Laying the Ground . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V. Colouring the Ground 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VI. The Needle .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VII. Needle-work 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VIII. Methods of Working 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IX. Mordants .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 X. After-Processes . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 XI. Printing .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 XII. Conclusion .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 19 
 
 25 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 5i 
 
 67 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Barn-door. Frontispiece 
 
 The Tryst (first-state) .26 
 
 The Barn-door (Jirst state) .28 
 
 The Larch Wood (wiped) . • .30 
 
 The Brook.32 
 
 The River Llyfnant (dry-point) .48 
 
 The Tryst.50 
 
 The Larch Wood (with retroussage) . 64 
 
PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following chapters upon the practice of Etching appeared 
 originally for the most part in the pages of “ The Etcher,” 
 and they were written under the impression that the experi¬ 
 ence gained during many years of practice might afford useful 
 hints for the guidance of novices in the art. It is true that 
 there has been no lack of valuable treatises upon etching. 
 Not to speak of earlier and now, perhaps, somewhat anti¬ 
 quated works, the recent writings of Haden, Hamerton, and 
 Lalanne—all of them practical etchers—might seem to have 
 embraced everything that could be usefully said upon the 
 subject. Yet no less true is it that the difficulties of a 
 manipulatory art often vary with every operator who prac¬ 
 tises it, and that although a writer may seem to himself to 
 have forestalled every possible occasion of error, there may 
 yet remain many upon which he has failed to touch, owing to 
 the fact of their never having presented themselves as diffi¬ 
 culties in his own practice. Be this as it may, it appeared to 
 the writer that, in spite of all that has appeared upon the 
 subject of etching, there were still some branches of it upon 
 which it might be useful to enlarge, and while it has been his 
 endeavour to give a sufficiently full and clear account of all 
 the principal methods of proceeding now in vogue, together 
 with such modifications of them as he has been led to intro¬ 
 duce in his own practice, he has treated some parts of the 
 subject—such, for instance, as that of needle-work—with a 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 degree of fulness not hitherto attempted. Judging by his 
 own experience of the errors into which beginners are 
 liable to fall, some hints upon the management of the needle 
 appeared to him by no means superfluous, although they may 
 simply embody conclusions to which, in their absence, the 
 etcher’s own practice would sooner or later guide him. 
 
 The subject of mordants was also one which appeared to 
 deserve some amplification. The etcher having found a 
 mordant to his liking, and to the use of which he has become 
 accustomed, forbears, as a rule, to trouble himself about any 
 other. Hence it is rare to find any one who has much prac¬ 
 tical acquaintance with the characteristics, various as they 
 are, of more than one. Some comparison, however, of those 
 generally in use seemed desirable, and this, partly from his 
 own experience, partly through the kindness of friends whose 
 practice has differed from his own, the writer has been 
 enabled to supply. He trusts, in short, that in the following 
 pages many hints respecting the minutiae of the etching 
 process may be found not previously touched upon. There 
 are probably few workers upon the copper who have not met 
 with difficulties in practice, to overcome which they have been 
 driven to devise their own expedients. There must be many 
 whose experience, if recorded, would not fail to be both 
 interesting and instructive, and to afford valuable hints 
 towards surmounting the obstacles which beset the young 
 etcher’s path. 
 
 I.—Choosing the Plate. 
 
 Among the essential preliminaries to successful etching, 
 the first to be considered is the proper selection of the copper 
 plate. Unfortunately, this is by no means so easy a matter 
 as may appear; for there may be fatal defects in a plate 
 which the closest scrutiny fails to detect, and which only 
 reveal themselves after the copper is worked upon. 
 
 Sometimes, when a plate is very imperfect, a certain 
 
CHOOSING THE PLATE . 
 
 3 
 
 mottled appearance, due to the presence of a multitude of 
 minute ramifying lines, may be observed. The copper is said 
 to be spongy, and in this case should be unhesitatingly 
 condemned. Were it to be etched upon, and a proof to be 
 taken, it would be found that each of the above-mentioned 
 lines would make its mark upon the paper, to the entire 
 destruction of anything like purity in the lights of the pic¬ 
 ture, and that with every successive impression the defect 
 would become more manifest. Not unfrequently, however, a 
 plate which appears to the eye perfectly sound is in reality 
 deceptive, and soft, either altogether, or in patches. In the 
 former case the mottled appearance above referred to, though 
 not at first observable, will, after a very few impressions, 
 begin to show itself, with all its attendant disadvantages; 
 and in the latter there will be the additional annoyance of 
 uneven biting, as the rate at which the plate is acted upon 
 by the acid depends upon the density of the metal. 
 
 The question naturally suggests itself whether there are 
 no means by which the etcher can test the copper plate 
 before purchasing. 
 
 With this object in view, some etchers try the ring of the 
 plate by balancing it on the outspread tips of the fingers of 
 one hand, while striking it with the other. It is said that 
 the sound will vary according to the density of the metal, a 
 soft plate yielding a more muffled tone than a hard one. 
 Probably to a practised ear this may be a satisfactory test, 
 but it can hardly be relied upon in the hands of a person 
 unaccustomed to its use. 
 
 Perhaps the best available test—though it is by no means 
 a crucial one—is afforded by the appearance of the back of 
 the plate. In former days, before the introduction of modern 
 machinery, all coppers were consolidated by hammering 
 —a process which left its mark in the battered appearance 
 . of both sides of the plate. On the back of the plate this 
 remained, and afforded evidence of its history; on the front 
 it was, of course, obliterated in the after-processes of planing 
 
4 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 and polishing. In the present day many coppers, instead of 
 being hammered, are simply passed between heavy rollers, as 
 is shown by the smooth, unbattered state of the back. The 
 pressure thus brought to bear upon them is, indeed, enormous, 
 but where the plate is of unequal density, it fails to consoli¬ 
 date the weak places, and plates which have been so treated 
 cannot be relied upon with the same confidence as those 
 which have been hammered. 
 
 On the whole, the best advice to be offered to the young 
 etcher, in reference to the selection of his plates, is, that he 
 should be careful to deal with a firm of high respectability, 
 and that he should insist on having the plates thoroughly 
 hammered—noting well the state of the back of the copper. 
 He will have to pay a rather higher price for them, but the 
 increased security and durability are really worth the addi¬ 
 tional outlay. M. Lalanne recommends that the plate should 
 be purchased thicker, but of somewhat smaller size than 
 required, and hammered out until the proper size is attained 
 — a course which will insure the metal being thoroughly 
 consolidated. But this does not apply to “ spongy " copper, 
 the defect of which is irremediable by hammering or any 
 other treatment. 
 
 II.— Cleaning the Plate. 
 
 Before proceeding to apply the etching ground to the plate, 
 it is necessary to remove from the surface of the latter every 
 trace of grease, which, if allowed to remain, would prevent 
 the etching ground adhering firmly to the plate, and cause 
 it to break away in patches. There is nothing better for 
 its removal than rectified spirit of turpentine applied with a 
 soft rag. Whiting and other powdery substances sometimes 
 recommended seem undesirable on the score of dust. 
 
 Some etchers are careful also to remove from the copper 
 all marks of tarnish. The necessity for this, if it ever exists, 
 seems to do so only where the etcher adopts the principle of 
 
CLEANING THE PLATE. 
 
 5 
 
 not allowing the needle-point to penetrate the surface of the 
 copper; and it arises from the fact that copper, when tar¬ 
 nished, is less readily attacked by the mordant than it is 
 when bright, and in order to obviate the unequal biting which 
 the presence of tarnish would thus involve. The removal is 
 easily effected by plunging the plate into a bath of pure 
 hydrochloric acid, or by the application of water slightly 
 acidulated with nitric acid. 
 
 Both grease and tarnish may also be conveniently removed 
 by rubbing the plate with willow charcoal. The charcoal, of 
 which a tolerably broad piece should be chosen, should be 
 cut at an acute angle with the grain, and the surface thus 
 obtained should be placed flat upon the copper, under water. 
 It should then be driven, gently but steadily, from end to end 
 of the plate in single, even strokes, after the manner of a 
 carpenter’s plane; the result of which will be, that the old 
 surface of the copper, with all its impurities, is removed, and 
 a new one substituted, uniformly marked by a multitude of 
 exceedingly minute striations due to the grain of the char¬ 
 coal. The plate, if printed from in this state, should yield an 
 even tint of delicate grey. In those passages in which the 
 artist may desire the pure white paper to be seen, the stria¬ 
 tions are afterwards easily removed, and the original polish of 
 the copper restored by the use of the burnisher; or the whole 
 surface of the copper may be repolished with crocus powder 
 and sweet oil applied with a piece of soft flannel. Another 
 advantage resulting from the use of the charcoal is, that 
 the striated surface of the copper affords better holding for 
 the etching-ground than a polished surface would give. 
 
 III.— The Etching Ground. 
 
 The plate, having been cleaned as previously described, 
 should now be coated with the etching ground, and it is in 
 some respects desirable that this should be done before the 
 copper has had time to become tarnished by contact with 
 
6 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 the air—an effect which the impure and smoky atmosphere 
 of the town soon produces. 
 
 Etching ground which may generally be relied upon, but 
 the constituents of which are known only to the maker, may 
 be purchased; and the following observations are intended 
 for those who, acting upon the maxim that “ if you want a 
 thing well done, you should do it yourself,” prefer to prepare 
 their own. 
 
 Among the qualities to be sought, the following seem to 
 be the most important. The ground should be impervious 
 to the acid, in order to protect those parts of the plate which 
 are not intended to be bitten. It should cling to the copper 
 with sufficient tenacity to prevent the mordant finding its 
 way between them, at the same time that it should be so 
 easily removable by the etching-needle as to offer the least 
 possible resistance to the free play of the artist’s hand. If 
 too hard, it will chip from the copper, and flake off as the 
 needle passes through it—a ragged line being the result; if 
 too soft, it will be liable to accidental injury which will lead 
 to “ foul biting.” A soft ground, moreover, sometimes shows 
 a tendency to be torn from the plate by the needle. And in 
 hot weather it will sometimes cling to the needle-point, which 
 thus becomes clogged with the ground, and incapable of 
 making any but a broad and clumsy line, a state of things 
 which involves a frequent wiping of the needle. 
 
 The happy mean indicated by these varied requirements 
 is realised by a judicious combination of certain hard and 
 soft elements of which the ground is composed : the soft 
 element generally adopted being pure white wax, and the 
 hard elements such substances as asphaltum, resin, gum 
 mastic, black pitch, Burgundy pitch, Japan varnish, &c. 
 And it may be observed that the elements should be com¬ 
 bined in different proportions, as the ground is required for 
 use in hot or cold weather: a ground which would be too 
 hard for use in cold weather giving satisfactory results when 
 the temperature is high. 
 
THE ETCHING GROUND. 
 
 7 
 
 Another point which should be considered in connection 
 with the mordant to be used, is the colour of the ground. 
 If the hydrochloric mordant, which darkens the bitten sur¬ 
 face of the copper, be adopted, it will be found convenient to 
 work with a somewhat pale ground, in contrast with which 
 the darkened lines of the etching will be clearly discernible. 
 When the mordant used is such as leaves the bitten lines 
 pale, which is the case with nitric acid, a dark ground may 
 be preferable. 
 
 In the published formulae for the preparation of etching 
 ground it is usual to find several of the above-mentioned 
 “ hard ” elements combined together, with a view of securing 
 the double character of hardness and adhesiveness. It 
 appeared to the writer that, if a single substance could be 
 found affording both of these qualities, it would be preferable, 
 on the score of simplicity, to use it in exclusion of any other. 
 This desideratum he found to be supplied by asphaltum, and 
 after many experiments he was led to adopt a simple mixture 
 of asphaltum and wax. This he has used for many years, 
 and has found it to be impervious to the acid, and quite free 
 from objection in other respects. In a thin film it gives a 
 light brown colour, sufficiently dark, without being smoked, 
 to afford contrast to the bright lines where the copper is 
 exposed by the needle, and thus to enable the artist to see 
 the line as he draws it; and, on the other hand, pale enough 
 to allow the lines when darkened by the hydrochloric mordant 
 to be clearly seen. 
 
 The proportion which the wax should bear to the other 
 ingredients of the ground varies much in the several formulae 
 put forward by writers upon etching. In Bosse’s ground— 
 one which can with safety be recommended—the proportions 
 by weight are as follows:—Wax, ten parts ; gum mastic, six 
 parts ; asphaltum, three parts. The materials are combined 
 by melting in a glazed earthenware pipkin; the wax being 
 first melted, and constantly stirred with a glass rod, while 
 the asphaltum and gum mastic are gradually added; and the 
 
8 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 whole, when thoroughly melted and mixed, may be either 
 poured into warm water, and made up into balls for use, or 
 converted into “ etching paste ” by the addition of oil of 
 lavender. 
 
 When asphaltum forms the only “ hard” element employed, 
 it seems that the proportion of wax should be much less than 
 that above indicated; and especially is this the case when 
 the practice is adopted of dissolving the ground, and applying 
 it to the plate in a liquid form. The writer has found that 
 an excess of wax not only occasions difficulty in filtering, 
 but sometimes altogether prevents the ground drying. 
 
 For liquid ground it will probably be found most convenient 
 to keep the materials in separate solutions, and to mix them 
 in the necessary proportions when required for use. To 
 prepare the solution of asphaltum, the substance should be 
 pulverized, and tied up firmly in one or two thicknesses of 
 very close fine muslin, and so placed in chloroform in a wide¬ 
 mouthed bottle. The soluble portions of the asphaltum will 
 pass freely through the muslin, while the impurities will be 
 left behind, and the solution may then be decanted into its 
 proper stock bottle for use. The wax solution should be also 
 prepared in a similar manner, the wax being previously 
 scraped into thin shreds. The solutions should be sufficiently 
 thin to flow easily, and they should be combined in propor¬ 
 tions of one part by volume of the wax to five parts of the 
 asphaltum. In hot weather the proportion of the wax may 
 be much smaller, and in intense heat it may be sometimes 
 found desirable to add a small quantity of gum mastic, which 
 may also be kept in solution, prepared in the same manner 
 as that of asphaltum. Especially is this the case when the 
 nitric or nitrous acid mordant is used, the effervescence 
 attending which has a tendency to disturb the ground at the 
 edges of the lines, from which a still mordant is comparatively 
 free. 
 
LAYING THE GROUND. 
 
 9 
 
 IV.— Laying the Ground. 
 
 There are three methods in use for applying the etching 
 ground to the copper, all of which it may be well to describe, 
 as each is useful under special circumstances. 
 
 In the first, which until recently was that usually adopted, 
 the plate is heated sufficiently to melt the ground without 
 burning, or causing it to boil. For this purpose it may be 
 held in a hand-vice over a gas-jet—its face being protected 
 from the roughness of the vice by a cushion of soft paper. 
 To insure the proper degree of heat is of the highest import¬ 
 ance. If the ground becomes burnt it is no longer of use, 
 and, should the heat of the copper be such as to cause it even 
 to smoke, the ground should be at once wiped off and a fresh 
 ground laid. 
 
 Should the etcher contemplate proving his plates himself, 
 which he is strongly recommended to do, he will have to 
 furnish himself, among other printing apparatus, with a heat¬ 
 ing plate, and this he will find of the greatest convenience for 
 laying the ground, especially upon plates of large dimension. 
 It consists of a large iron plate, of about half an inch in 
 thickness, the space beneath which is enclosed with sheet 
 iron, and heated with gas-jets, or a spirit-lamp. By this 
 means the heat can be easily regulated, and an even tempera¬ 
 ture maintained for any length of time. And it may be 
 observed that for printing purposes the iron plate should be 
 considerably larger than the copper, and it should be heated 
 by more than one jet, placed sufficiently far apart to admit of 
 different portions of the iron being kept at different degrees 
 of temperature. A convenient heating table of cast iron 
 (Fig. i) is manufactured by Messrs. Hughes and Kimber, of 
 Fetter Lane. 
 
 Another plan for heating the copper plate is to have a flat 
 rectangular box of copper filled with water, which is kept at 
 the proper temperature by a gas-stove or spirit-lamp. 
 
10 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 Over the whole surface of the copper plate thus heated, the 
 etching ground, previously made up into a small ball, and 
 wrapped in a piece of thin porous silk, is rubbed, and, being 
 melted by contact with the copper, passes freely through the 
 silk. It is then equalised and distributed over the plate in a 
 thin, even layer by means of a silk or leather dabber. 
 
 The dabber should be flat with rounded edges, smooth, soft, 
 and elastic; and may be made as follows. A circular disc of 
 thick cardboard should be prepared, having a diameter of 
 about three inches, three or four thicknesses of the softest 
 cotton-wool of the same size, some horse-hair, and a piece of 
 strong, smooth silk about eight inches square* The silk 
 being spread out, the cotton-wool is first laid upon it, then 
 
 the horse-hair in an even layer, and last of all the cardboard 
 disc. The silk is then run round with a needle and strong 
 thread, at a distance of about an inch outside the edge of the 
 cardboard, and drawn up so as to enclose the whole, and, the 
 edges being brought together and fastened off to form the 
 handle, the dabber is complete. 
 
 A piece of kid leather is sometimes substituted for the silk. 
 Both materials present a certain roughness of surface, due, in 
 the one case, to the texture of the silk, and in the other, to 
 the minute papillae from which the animal's hairs have sprung; 
 and the utmost care must be taken that in spreading the 
 ground the copper is thoroughly covered, and the occurrence 
 of “ pinholes” avoided. 
 
LAYING THE GROUND . 
 
 i 
 
 Another mode of applying the ground is by means of a roller 
 (Fig. 2); an implement introduced in Paris, originally for the 
 purpose of laying the ground for rebiting, but which is equally 
 serviceable in laying it in the first instance. It consists of a 
 wooden roller about two inches in diameter and five inches 
 in length, covered with leather, and resembles in miniature 
 an ordinary garden roller.* The ground is applied in the form 
 of a very soft paste—almost liquid—made by adding a suffi¬ 
 cient quantity of oil of lavender to the other ingredients when 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 in their melted state; and it is spread, in the first instance, 
 upon a clean copper plate, and the roller passed and repassed 
 over it until every part of the latter’s surface is evenly charged 
 with the ground. The roller is then transferred to the plate 
 which it is proposed to coat, and moved backwards and for¬ 
 wards upon it until the surface of the copper is entirely 
 covered with an even film. The volatile oil of lavender is 
 then driven off by the application of a moderate degree of 
 
 * These rollers are now made of gelatine, which affords a surface of more perfect 
 uniformity than the leather. 
 
12 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 heat to the back of the plate, and the ground left in a firm 
 state. 
 
 In laying the ground it is very essential to avoid, as far as 
 possible, the admixture of dust, the particles of which would 
 cause weak places through which the acid might find its way. 
 Unfortunately, in either of the above processes, minute par¬ 
 ticles may be present without their presence being disclosed ; 
 and this fact, coupled with the great difficulty of finding 
 an atmosphere free from dust, inclines the writer to prefer 
 the process of applying the ground in the form of solution. 
 By this method “ pinholes ” are altogether avoided. Dust, 
 although it may be almost obviated by the apparatus pre¬ 
 sently to be described, cannot be absolutely eliminated, but 
 it either floats off on the surface of the solution, as it is poured 
 back from the plate into the bottle, or, failing this, it effectually 
 declares its presence by a certain amount of disturbance which 
 it causes in the uniformity of the film; and it can then, if 
 necessary, be stopped out before the plate is bitten. 
 
 The writer has found chloroform to be the best solvent for 
 the ground, but the solution should be passed two or three 
 times through filtering paper before it is used. It is desirable 
 to use plenty of the solvent, and to have the ground in a very 
 fluid state ; and care should be taken to have the chloroform 
 perfectly free from globules of water. 
 
 In applying the ground, the plate, if small, may be held in 
 the hand, while the solution is poured over it from the bottle 
 —as collodion is poured over the glass by a photographer. It 
 should then be tilted in order to carry the solution into every 
 corner, and the excess of solution poured back into the bottle 
 from the last corner visited. 
 
 In the case of large plates the following difficulties present 
 themselves. Owing to the extent of the surface, the chloro¬ 
 form, being exceedingly volatile, evaporates, and the solution 
 dries over some portions of the plate before others have been 
 covered—the result of which is a film of uneven thickness. 
 The dust also, of which there is always much floating in the 
 
LAYING THE GROUND. 
 
 1 3 
 
 atmosphere, has time to settle upon the plate, and becomes a 
 source of considerable annoyance. To obviate both of these 
 
 difficulties the following plan may be found useful. The 
 apparatus (Fig. 3) required consists of a drawing-board and 
 a light wooden frame, rather smaller than 
 the board, but larger than the plate in¬ 
 tended to be operated upon, and having a 
 groove round its inside, after the manner 
 of a school-boy's slate, to receive a sheet 
 of glass. The groove should be so placed 
 that, when the frame is laid upon the 
 drawing-board, the glass should be dis¬ 
 tant from its surface about a quarter of 
 an inch ; and along one side of the frame 
 the wood should be cut away from the 
 under-side of the glass, and the latter 
 prolonged to form a handle for raising 
 the frame. A glass tube (Fig. 4) is also 
 required about a foot long, closed at one 
 end, but having the other end spread 
 open, and fitted to receive a cork. The 
 tube is for the purpose of holding the 
 chloroform solution, and it should be 
 bent to a right angle at a distance of 
 about an inch and a half from its open 
 end. The glazed frame being laid upon 
 the drawing-board with its “ handle ” 
 side projecting about a couple of inches 
 
PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 beyond the edge of the board, the plate is introduced 
 between them, and so placed that one of its corners also 
 projects beyond the board to a distance of about an inch. 
 The apparatus should then be placed upon some circular 
 support—such as the bottom of a large basin turned upside 
 down—and, the glazed frame being slightly raised, the 
 tube filled with the chloroform solution is introduced, and 
 a sufficient quantity of the solution poured on the centre 
 of the plate—an operation which is much facilitated by the 
 bend in the tube above referred to. The tube is now 
 withdrawn, and the frame replaced, and the drawing-board, 
 with the plate and frame upon it, tilted in every direction 
 upon its circular base, so that the solution may be carried 
 over every portion of the plate. It will be found that, 
 owing to the extreme thinness of the stratum of air in con¬ 
 tact with the solution, evaporation takes place so slowly 
 that there is ample time for the plate to be successfully 
 covered long before the solution dries. 
 
 In case the latter should manifest any hesitation in flowing 
 over the plate, it is well to have a long piece of wire at hand 
 with which the operation can be forwarded. When the plate 
 is coated, the excess of the solution can be returned to the 
 tube from the corner which was left projecting over the edge 
 of the board. 
 
 After the plate has been coated with the solution, twenty- 
 four hours should be allowed to elapse before it is submitted 
 to the action of the mordant. The chloroform, it is true, soon 
 evaporates, and the ground becomes in a certain sense dry, 
 but it remains for some time tender, and would in that state 
 afford a very imperfect protection to the plate. 
 
 V.—Colouring the Ground. 
 
 Among the difficulties which beset the etcher’s path, there 
 is one which appears to have exercised his mind not a little— 
 
COLOURING THE GROUND. 
 
 1 5 
 
 that of not being able to see clearly his work upon the copper 
 while it is being executed, and several expedients have been 
 devised for the purpose of overcoming this. Foremost among 
 them is the plan of smoking the ground. All that is essential 
 is a sufficient contrast between the etched line and the ground 
 upon which it is traced, and it is difficult to imagine any 
 contrast more complete than is afforded between the bright 
 copper of the lines exposed by the needle, and the dead 
 blackened surface of a smoked ground. It is true that the 
 effect of the picture, as regards light and shadow, is the con¬ 
 verse of that which is presented by the proof when the plate 
 comes to be printed,—the black lines of the proof being 
 represented by burnished copper, and the white paper by the 
 blackened ground. But this is of little moment. All that 
 the artist really requires is the power of seeing his work as 
 he does it, and this the smoke upon the plate enables him 
 perfectly to do. 
 
 The best way of smoking a plate is to pass it, face down¬ 
 wards, across the broad and steady flame which issues from a 
 “ bat’s-wing ” gas-burner. Where the convenience of gas 
 does not exist, the old plan of twisting together several pieces 
 of thin taper into a sort of flambeau may be adopted. In 
 either case, great care must be taken that the ground does 
 not become burnt. 
 
 It is not only while working with the needle, however, that 
 the artist requires to see his lines. This is equally indispen¬ 
 sable during the process of biting, and it is obvious that, if 
 the ground be darkened, it will be necessary to use a mordant 
 which will keep the lines bright, or at least pale in colour. 
 This the nitric acid mordant does. The hydrochloric mor¬ 
 dant, on the other hand, darkens the lines to such a degree 
 that they are quite indistinguishable from the smoked ground, 
 and, when that is used, the ground must be kept pale. On 
 this principle, and in order to obtain the utmost degree of 
 contrast, and at the same time to insure that the lines of the 
 etching shall appear dark upon a white surface, Mr. Hamerton 
 
i6 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 has introduced a process of silvering the copper plate, which 
 he afterwards covers with a perfectly colourless ground, so 
 that the darkened lines of the etching are seen as clearly as 
 on white paper. At first sight this may seem an unnecessary 
 refinement, but it is really not so. So difficult is it for an 
 unpractised eye to judge of the light and shadow of an 
 etching, when the plate is covered by a dark ground, that 
 anything which lessens the difficulty may be welcomed as a 
 distinct advantage. The process is available only where the 
 etcher adopts the practice of working upon the copper while 
 it is in the mordant, as the lines are invisible until attacked 
 by the acid. Even in this case a few seconds elapse before 
 the darkening of the lines takes place, and hence it seems 
 better on the whole, when using the hydrochloric mordant, to 
 adopt, as above suggested, a ground which, while dark 
 enough to allow the bright lines to be seen at the moment of 
 drawing them, is yet pale enough to show them also when 
 they have been darkened by the acid. 
 
 As the last-mentioned process is available when the plate 
 is worked upon in the bath, so, on the other hand, in cases 
 where the needle-work is completed before the biting begins, 
 some etchers adopt a process of coating the grounded plate 
 with white body-colour. In “The Etcher” for March, 1880, Mr. 
 Huson describes such a process as practised by himself. The 
 plate being covered with a ground of wax and gum mastic 
 dissolved in chloroform, is dried over a lamp, and, when cool, 
 a wash of ordinary “ bottle ” Chinese white is applied with a 
 soft brush, and as the needle penetrates the ground the work 
 appears distinctly as a “ positive ” in dark lines upon a pale 
 ground. 
 
 VI.— The Needle. 
 
 Before entering upon the subject of working with the 
 needle, it will be well to devote a short space to thp con¬ 
 sideration of that implement. 
 
THE NEEDLE . 
 
 1 7 
 
 Etching-needles are supplied in two forms; either single, 
 and fixed in wooden handles, or made entirely of iron, thick 
 in the middle and tapering to a point at each end. The 
 latter form is to be preferred, as it affords the means of 
 having points of different degrees of fineness in the same 
 instrument. 
 
 The proper sharpening of the needle is a matter of great 
 importance to the etcher, and the process is one of not a 
 little nicety. The needle should give a line of the same 
 thickness in whatever direction it may be used, and, to insure 
 this, its section should be perfectly round. Probably the 
 best mode of sharpening it is to fasten it in a lathe and turn 
 it, using the sharpening-stone as a tool in doing so. As a 
 lathe, however, is not at the command of every etcher, the 
 following plan may be described, and will be found quite 
 effectual. The stem of the needle should be held between 
 the palms of the hands, and rolled or “ trundled ” backwards 
 and forwards, its point being laid upon a piece of Arkansas 
 or other sharpening stone. The pressure on the stone should 
 be light, and the operation performed very evenly—the 
 needle-point being frequently examined with a lens while 
 it is proceeding,—and the slope of the needle to the point 
 should be gradual rather than abrupt. 
 
 The point, having arrived at the highest attainable degree 
 of sharpness, should now undergo a certain process of burnish¬ 
 ing. The chief glory of the etched line is its perfect spon¬ 
 taneity, and, to insure this, it is essential that the needle 
 should pass over the copper with equal facility in every 
 direction. But it is obvious that if a needle, simply sharpened 
 as above described, were driven point first over the plate, 
 the point would at once dig into the copper, to the entire 
 destruction of anything like freedom in the work. To 
 obviate this, the point should be placed upon a flat surface 
 of glazed porcelain, and the stem of the needle again rolled 
 between the hands as before, considerable pressure being 
 now used. By this means the point becomes rounded off, so 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 that, while it still preserves much of its sharpness, it is found 
 to glide freely over the copper in every direction. A needle¬ 
 point can hardly be considered to be in a perfect state, unless 
 (whichever side of the instrument be used) the lines produced 
 are of uniform thickness, and the needle can be driven point 
 first over the plate without obstruction. Excessive sharpness 
 in the needle may also be removed by a few strokes upon a 
 wooden surface, or a piece of buff leather. The etcher having 
 been at the pains to secure a perfect point to his needle, will 
 do well to guard it jealously, and to keep it, when not in use, 
 protected with a piece of cork 
 
 It remains to consider the needle-point to be used when 
 the plate is worked upon in the mordant, which attacks a 
 steel needle as actively as it does the copper plate. It has 
 been suggested that, even where this occurs, the loss of a 
 needle is not a very serious matter, and if the question were 
 simply pecuniary, it would not, perhaps, be worth considera¬ 
 tion. Unfortunately, however, the acid is apt to corrode the 
 needle in a very uneven manner, and the consequence is 
 that the operator finds himself, after a while, working with 
 what may be more fittingly styled a “ ragged stump ” than 
 a needle-point—a condition not conducive to a satisfactory 
 result. 
 
 A pencil of glass is sometimes recommended as a substitute 
 for the metal needle, but ordinary glass is of so brittle a 
 nature that, when brought to a sharp point, it is very apt to 
 break and become unmanageable. Whether a needle formed 
 of the toughened glass recently introduced would behave any 
 better the writer is not prepared to say. 
 
 On the whole, he has no better suggestion to offer upon 
 this subject than that contained in the memorable paper 
 “ About Etching ”—which every etcher ought to read—con¬ 
 tributed some years ago to the “ Fine Arts Quarterly ” by 
 Mr. Haden, viz.: “ A point formed of a faulty diamond, or a 
 colourless sapphire, or a piece of chalcedony, or a rock 
 crystal, or any primitive stone having a natural cleavage and 
 
NEEDLE- WORK . 
 
 »9 
 
 a cutting edge, firmly fixed in a pencil of ebony by a gold 
 or platinum band.” 
 
 VII.— Needle-work. 
 
 We abandon now for a while the prosaic operations of the 
 laboratory, to devote ourselves to those which are more 
 directly and essentially artistic. The etcher, armed with his 
 perfectly sharpened needle—“slave of his thoughts, obedient 
 to his will ”—sees nothing between him and the grounded 
 copper upon which his fleeting imaginations are to take 
 shape; and far be it from the present writer to seek by any 
 arbitrary and vexatious restrictions to hinder him in the free 
 exercise of what should be the most autographic and spon¬ 
 taneous of human arts. None the less true, however, is it 
 that there are certain principles of working which the beginner 
 will do well to bear in mind—certain causes of failure against 
 which he should be placed upon his guard. 
 
 One of the commonest errors into which the young etcher 
 is liable to fall is that of overworking the lights of his picture. 
 Striving to emulate, with the needle, the line-engraver’s mode 
 of execution, he will be disappointed to find that, while he 
 entirely fails to secure the delicacy and uniformity which he 
 admires, he has not only sacrificed the purity of his light, 
 but has also missed, what is a special characteristic of good 
 etching, the expressive significance of the line. The two 
 arts are, in fact, distinct, and although the truths sought to 
 be expressed may sometimes be identical, their treatment 
 will be very different. 
 
 The etcher, in short, relies for expression (especially in the 
 lights of his picture) upon his line, and, in order that this may 
 have its full effect and recognition, he will do well to bear in 
 mind the maxim that while “ speech is of silver, silence is of 
 gold,” and to leave plenty of white paper around his lines for 
 the double purpose of allowing these to be the more clearly 
 seen, and of affording effective contrast in the light and 
 shadow of his work. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 There is a point of considerable importance regarding the 
 character of the etched line in relation to the depth to which 
 it is proposed that it should be afterwards bitten. 
 
 The action of the mordant is twofold. In the first place 
 it takes effect in a vertical direction, and simply deepens 
 the line. Very soon, however, a lateral action also takes 
 place, the result of which is that, while the deepening still 
 goes on, the line is also widened, and, in proportion as this 
 action is continued, its character becomes changed. The 
 delicate curvatures and nuances visible during the first stages 
 of the biting process are overborne and obliterated as it 
 proceeds, and closely adjacent lines which are at first distinct 
 become, by the eating away of the ridge which separates 
 them, fused together. Hence it follows, on the one hand, 
 that passages the lines of which are characterized by subtlety 
 of curvature or close intricacy of arrangement should be ten¬ 
 derly bitten, and on the other, that lines which are intended 
 to be deeply bitten should be simple in character, and open 
 in arrangement. 
 
 In connection with this the student may usefully compare 
 the complexity of the refined and tenderly bitten lines which 
 Rembrandt uses to express the hair, for instance, in his early 
 portraits, with the lines etched by Turner in the plates of the 
 “ Liber Studiorum.” The latter were required to give cha¬ 
 racter and transparency to the mezzotint, and it was therefore 
 essential that they should be deeply bitten. Vigorous as they 
 are, and full of character, displaying the perfect knowledge 
 of the master, they are scarcely less remarkable on account 
 of their studied simplicity. 
 
 Of this use of the heavily bitten “ organic ” line in afford¬ 
 ing expression and transparency to shadow, more will be said 
 hereafter, but before leaving the subject of the action of the 
 mordant in widening the line, it should be observed that, 
 while allowance must be made for it in the lights of the 
 picture, this is no less the case in the deepest shadows. 
 
 If we compare a well-printed impression from an etched 
 
NEEDLE- WORK. 
 
 21 
 
 plate with one from a woodcut—especially if the comparison 
 is made (as, according to connoisseurs, etchings should always 
 be seen) under a side light—a remarkable difference will be 
 observed in the depth and transparency of the shadows, those 
 in the woodcut appearing flat and opaque by the side of the 
 etching. This result is due to the fact that the line of the 
 etched plate being hollow leaves upon the paper a ridge of 
 ink, which every printer who understands the printing of 
 etchings is careful, in drying the impressions, to preserve 
 intact; and this, varying according to the depth of the lines, 
 imparts to the proof a variety of texture unattainable in the 
 impression from the woodcut, in which the lines, being printed 
 from the surface, are all of equal flatness. 
 
 It is obvious that, in order to secure this variety, and its 
 resultant transparency, the lines must be graduated in depth 
 of biting—the deepest being reserved for passages of the 
 ' most intense shadow. But depth of shadow will also be 
 largely in proportion to the juxtaposition of the lines—open 
 work, w r here much of the paper is shown between them, being 
 cceteris paribus paler than where the lines are more closely 
 placed,—and the young etcher, acting upon this principle, 
 naturally makes his work closer as the shadow deepens, and 
 he is apt, in the darkest passages, to place his lines so near 
 together, that, long before they have acquired the requisite 
 depth of biting, the mordant, acting laterally, has swept away 
 all the intervening copper, and reduced the whole passage to 
 a uniformly flat depression which either fails to retain the 
 ink when the plate is wiped for printing, or, at best, prints as 
 a mere blot. It should, therefore, be borne in mind that, in 
 passages which are intended to be heavily bitten, it is neces¬ 
 sary to keep the work open, and so to allow for the widening 
 action of the mordant. 
 
 The principle of adjusting the closeness of the work to the 
 depth of the biting holds good, indeed, throughout, and it is 
 a well-understood maxim that, where it becomes necessary 
 to associate close work with open, the lines of the latter 
 
22 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 should, in order to “hold their own/* be much more deeply- 
 bitten than the former; and the etcher has to be constantly 
 on his guard against the tendency of all close work, if 
 strongly bitten, to run into blots. 
 
 Another aspect of the same question presents itself in 
 reference to the direction in which lines in shading should 
 cross each other. It often happens that, when this takes 
 place at an acute angle, the widening action of the mordant 
 at the point of junction gives rise to the effect of a blot, and 
 causes unevenness in the shadow. In some passages this 
 very unevenness may be made conducive to the expression 
 of character, in others it may be fatal to it, and where this 
 would be the case, care should be taken that the lines shall 
 cross each other as nearly at a right angle as may be. The 
 advice here given may seem to be at variance with the 
 practice of Rembrandt and others of the great etchers of old, 
 in whose works the lines in the deep shadows cross each 
 other in every direction, and are laid so close that the unas¬ 
 sisted eye sees no space between them, and yet there is 
 neither blot nor unevenness. It should, however, be observed 
 that the lines in these examples were not all bitten together 
 —the practice having been to lay a fresh ground, and so 
 protect the lines originally laid before the crossing lines 
 were added, the simultaneous widening of the lines being 
 thus avoided. 
 
 The proper adjustment of the closeness of the work to the 
 depth of biting constitutes one of the chief difficulties in the 
 etcher’s path. The problem, by no means simple in itself, 
 becomes still more complicated by the necessity of taking 
 into consideration the effect which a passage will receive 
 from association with others. 
 
 A distinguished living etcher was once asked how he was 
 in the habit of lightening an over-bitten passage, and his 
 reply was, “By putting one more heavily bitten by the side 
 of it.” The principle of contrast here implied, and which in 
 fact underlies all graphic art, is nowhere more conspicuous 
 
NEEDLE- WORK . 
 
 2 3 
 
 in its results than in etching, in which a passage receives 
 much of its effect from the relation which it bears to its 
 surroundings, and appears pale or dark accordingly. 
 
 It is, however, not only in reference to the weight of 
 shadow that a knowledge of the relation between the needle¬ 
 work and the biting is essential. In the half-lights of an 
 etching the same weight of shadow may often be obtained by 
 using either lightly bitten close work, or more heavily bitten 
 open work; and were that the only question, it might be a 
 matter of indifference which of the two methods should be 
 adopted. But, considered in reference to the question of 
 texture, the two methods afford results widely different, and 
 the etcher who would avail himself of all the capabilities of 
 his art in expressing the varied phenomena of the world 
 around him will find the means thus indicated of imparting a 
 corresponding variety to his work to be of the highest value. 
 
 Some of the difficulties attendant upon the process of 
 biting have already been indicated, and there are others of 
 which more will be said hereafter—taken together they pre¬ 
 sent a formidable array, sufficient to damp the most per¬ 
 severing ardour, were there no means of correcting mistakes. 
 
 Happily these are by no means wanting. If the work be 
 too heavily bitten, there are several ways of lightening it—if 
 too light or open, the lines can be deepened by rebiting, or 
 supplemented by the addition of fresh lines, either bitten or 
 worked with the dry point. Much also may be done in the 
 same direction by management of the plate in printing, both 
 in the way of retroussage and also of leaving a tint of ink, 
 more or less heavy, upon the surface of the copper. But 
 upon these latter expedients, perfectly justifiable as they are 
 in themselves, and when kept within due bounds, it is not 
 wise to rely too much. In the first place, it is only in the 
 hands of a very first-class printer that they can be resorted 
 to with anything like precision or uniformity of result. 
 And even where the services of such a skilled workman are 
 available, if too much is left to be supplied by ink from the 
 
24 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 surface of the copper, the shadows of the work are apt to 
 become opaque and muddy in character. The printing, in 
 fact, becomes pro tanto a “ surface ” printing, and the trans¬ 
 parency of which the etching process is capable is sacrificed. 
 Upon the whole, it is better to rely for effect chiefly upon 
 work actually put into the plate with the needle. 
 
 It may be useful, in illustration of the foregoing remarks, 
 to consider shortly the practice of Rembrandt, so far as it 
 may be gleaned from such a plate as the “ Christ healing the 
 Sick.” The work is too well known to need description, and 
 it will be sufficient to call the reader’s attention to the several 
 portions of it as they are brought in review for the present 
 purpose. 
 
 In the broad light to the extreme left of the spectator— 
 the principal light of the picture—it will be noticed with 
 what simplicity the group of figures is rendered. The details 
 are merely sketched in, either with dry point or in lightly 
 bitten lines—no attempt being made at elaboration, but 
 much white paper left, both for the sake of contrast, and in 
 order to show to full advantage the expressive drawing. 
 At the base of the picture on the same side will be seen a 
 passage in half shadow worked entirely with freely drawn 
 simple lines, firmly bitten but quite open in arrangement. 
 Continuing to the right, towards the figure of Christ, the 
 work passes into shadow and becomes closer, and in this 
 figure itself, much of which is in half shadow, it reaches an 
 extreme degree of delicate finish. 
 
 Upon the dress is seen the shadow of the uplifted hand of 
 a figure farther to the right worked in dry point so closely 
 that the magnifying-glass scarcely resolves it into its com¬ 
 ponent lines. The group of which the last-mentioned figure 
 forms part is in half shadow, and is also very closely worked. 
 From it we pass on to an old couple in strong light, the man 
 leaning on a staff, and being helped forward, and beyond 
 these to the figure of the ass, and the figure seated by it, 
 which are both sunk in shadow of great depth and trans- 
 
NEEDLE- WORK . 
 
 25 
 
 parency; this also pervades much of the right-hand portion 
 of the picture, and reaches its profoundest depth in the space 
 immediately above the figure with uplifted hand above 
 referred to. The etching is an epitome of every kind of 
 working, and will repay the most careful study in all its parts, 
 and it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more con¬ 
 summate than the art displayed in the gradation to which 
 the transparency of the deep shadows is due. It appears to 
 have been obtained by crossing in every direction the more 
 or less heavily bitten lines with others closely worked, both 
 bitten and in dry point, in which use is made of the bur for 
 enrichment, while in some of the darkest portions a heavy 
 tint of ink has been left upon the surface of the plate, and 
 printed. 
 
 VIII.— Methods of Working. 
 
 The foregoing chapter has been devoted to a discussion 
 of the principles which should regulate the actual working 
 with the needle. It remains to consider the various methods 
 according to one or other of which the plate may be executed. 
 
 By the old practice, which is still very generally adopted, 
 the etcher completes the whole of the needle-work before 
 any portion of it is bitten. The plate, having its back and 
 edges previously protected with varnish, is then immersed in 
 a bath of the mordant, and the whole of the lines are bitten 
 to the depth required for the palest passages. The plate is 
 then removed from the bath, washed in pure water and 
 thoroughly dried, and those passages which are to remain at 
 the depth already attained are varnished over, or, in technical 
 phrase, “ stopped out.” The coat of stopping-out varnish 
 being dry, the plate is again immersed in the bath, and the 
 unstopped lines bitten to the depth required for the passages 
 next in strength to the palest. These are in their turn 
 stopped out, and the plate proceeds by similar steps of 
 alternate biting and stopping out until the darkest passages 
 
26 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 have attained their full desired strength. The plate has then 
 passed its first stage, and having been cleaned from the 
 ground and stopping-out varnish, is ready for the printer. 
 
 There are several kinds of stopping-out varnish in use. 
 For the back of the plate a very liquid solution of Brunswick 
 black in turpentine is excellent and dries quickly, and may 
 be applied as follows :—The plate being placed in a leaning 
 position with its face to the wall, the varnish is brushed 
 over it in horizontal strokes, which run into and overlap each 
 other, and thus form a compact coating. 
 
 For the stopping out of bitten lines the same varnish will 
 be found useful, when it is not intended to work upon the 
 passage again with the needle. When, however, fresh work 
 has to be added, a solution of asphaltum and wax in tur¬ 
 pentine is to be preferred, as Brunswick black becomes, 
 when dry, too brittle, and is apt to chip away from the plate. 
 The proper consistency of the varnish is important. If this 
 is too thick it fails to reach the bottom of the more deeply 
 bitten lines, and these remain practically unprotected. On 
 the other hand, if it is very liquid, and applied incautiously 
 with a full brush, it is apt to run along the network of the 
 bitten lines, and to stop out passages intended to be reserved 
 for further biting. 
 
 It is sufficient for the varnish to be “ surface ” dry before 
 the plate is replaced in the bath, but it is of the highest 
 importance that the plate should have become thoroughly dry 
 before the varnish is applied, in default of which the latter 
 fails to adhere to the plate; and care should be taken, in 
 washing, to remove from the plate every trace of the mordant, 
 the salt in which, being deliquescent, has a tendency to 
 prevent the varnish from adhering. 
 
 It may seem unnecessary to insist upon the importance of 
 thoroughly stopping out the lines, but without the closest 
 scrutiny the ends of delicate lines are rather apt to be over¬ 
 looked, and what is at first an infinitesimal defect becomes, 
 during the subsequent biting, a fatal disfigurement. 
 
METHODS OF WORKING . 
 
 2 7 
 
 As the turpentine in the varnish has the effect of making 
 the brush harsh and brittle, the latter should after use be 
 washed, first in linseed oil, then with soap and water, and 
 finally with plenty of clean water. 
 
 The above method of procedure—known among the French 
 as par couvertures —was until recently the only process in use 
 by which advantage could be taken of varying degrees of 
 biting. A difficulty attends it in cases where lines of various 
 depths have to be intimately commingled. 
 
 In landscape, for instance, it often becomes necessary, with 
 the view of expressing either the gradation and transparency 
 of shadow, or the tangled intricacy of multitudinous fore¬ 
 ground detail, to associate in close contiguity lines of many 
 various degrees of depth. This it is practically impossible to 
 do by any system of mere stopping out, and in treating such 
 passages the practice had obtained of restricting the earlier 
 biting to lines of uniform depth, and reserving the completion 
 for a subsequent stage of the work, when, the plate having 
 been cleaned, and a fresh ground laid, the paler lines are 
 added, and bitten separately. In certain respects this is the 
 best plan to adopt. The attention being confined to the 
 biting of one set of lines at a time, it is unnecessary to con¬ 
 sider the effect which the acid is taking on lines previously 
 laid, and, as between each successive operation a proof can 
 be taken of the plate, the etcher is enabled to feel his way, 
 step by step, to the realisation of the effect which he desires. 
 But it is necessarily somewhat tedious, and the method next 
 to be described, which has latterly come much into use, 
 affords some of the same advantages, without the delay 
 which cleaning and regrounding the plate involve. 
 
 In the year 1866, Mr. Haden, to whom on so many ac¬ 
 counts Etching is deeply indebted, published in the “Fine 
 Arts Quarterly Review” his plan of working from nature 
 upon the plate while in the mordant bath. Of this method, 
 simple as it is, it is not too much to say that its introduction 
 marks an epoch in the history of the art. By its adoption 
 
28 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 the troublesome and dilatory operation of stopping out is 
 thrown aside, and the needle-work and biting are carried on 
 simultaneously. The plate, properly protected as above 
 described, is placed in the bath, and the etcher, working 
 with a point which the acid will not corrode, begins by 
 needling the heaviest passages of his work, and passes on, 
 with such intervals as are necessary for the careful considera¬ 
 tion and selection of his lines, to those of less depth, and so 
 on to the palest. 
 
 As the acid is in action during the whole time, and seizes 
 upon the lines as they are successively drawn, a gradation 
 in their depth is secured, and, theoretically at least, as many 
 differences of depth are obtained as there are lines in the 
 picture. 
 
 The process has its own difficulties. In the first place, it 
 admits of no locus penitentice . A line once drawn must, 
 together with any defect or accidental injury to the ground, 
 remain, and work its way for weal or woe during the remainder 
 of the sitting. For this reason unerring draughtsmanship is 
 essential to success. A precise relation, moreover, must 
 exist between the rate at which the needle-work is executed 
 and that at which the acid will corrode the metal; and, as 
 the latter depends much upon temperature, it follows that, 
 with acid of a given strength, the size of the plate, or at 
 least the amount of work to be done, must be regulated 
 according to the heat of the weather. And it should be 
 observed that the variation in depth between lines con¬ 
 secutively laid is in reality so slight that, except in very 
 slightly bitten work, it fails to give the effect of gradation ; 
 and, unless considerable pauses are made in the execution of 
 the needle-work, so as to secure much diversity in depth of 
 line, the effect is apt to be monotonous. On the other hand, 
 where a pale even tint is desired to be formed by lines of 
 slight depth over a large portion of the work, it is often 
 difficult to execute them with sufficient rapidity to secure the 
 desired uniformity. Although the process, under the skilful 
 
METHODS OF WORKING. 
 
 29 
 
 and practised hand of its inventor, has yielded brilliant 
 results, it has done so rather in spite of its inherent diffi¬ 
 culties, and these are, in fact, so considerable as to render it 
 unsuitable for any but an experienced etcher to practise. 
 
 The difficulties, however, are due to the fact that the plate 
 is executed in the bath, and they may be avoided without 
 abandoning the essential principle of commencing with the 
 darkest passages and working up to the palest. This may 
 be equally secured under the following modification—prac¬ 
 ticable when the etcher has the opportunity of recurring to 
 his subject, and executing the plate at successive sittings. 
 The operations of needle-work and biting are here separated 
 —the former being done upon the dry plate in successive 
 detachments—the darkest first—and bitten between whiles 
 to the depth required. Theoretically the gradation is not so 
 uniform as when the action of the acid is continuous, but it 
 is more appreciable, and the operations are far more under 
 control than when they both take place simultaneously. It 
 will be found, practically, that (with the assistance of variety 
 in the closeness of the needle-work) all necessary gradation 
 may be secured, and monotony avoided by dividing the 
 process of biting into about six different stages, which may 
 be arranged in the following proportions:—Taking the 
 heaviest biting as represented by the number 24, and the 
 palest by the number 1, the successive steps would bear the 
 relation to each other of 24, 12, 7, 4, 2, and 1. 
 
 In the proposed method, the darkest lines are first needled, 
 and bitten to a depth represented by 12— i.e . to one-half of 
 their ultimate depth. The plate having been removed from 
 the bath, washed, and dried, the lines next in strength are 
 needled, and bitten to a depth represented by 5, when the 
 lines first laid will have reached a depth represented by 17 ; 
 a third needling then follows, and a biting for a depth of 3, 
 when the first-laid lines will have reached a depth of 20, and 
 the second a depth of 8; after which the same process is 
 repeated for a depth of 2. Two further needlings and bitings 
 
30 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 follow, each representing a depth of i, at the conclusion of 
 which the lines first laid will have reached their full depth of 
 24, the palest a depth of 1, and the intermediate lines their 
 respective depths of 12, 7, 4, and 2. 
 
 In order to illustrate the various modes of working above 
 described, it may be well to detail shortly the history of the 
 accompanying plates. The etching of “ The Tryst ” was 
 executed in the first instance par couvertures , and “ The Barn 
 Door” (of which the finished plate forms the frontispiece to 
 this volume) partly by the same method, and partly by that of 
 successive needlings, as lastly described, and as they were 
 both executed expressly for this work, it has been thought 
 well to give impressions of them in two successive states. 
 The account of their completion will be found under the head 
 of “ After Processes.” 
 
 Both of the plates were bitten under the same conditions, 
 viz. under a temperature of 60 degrees Fahr., and with a 
 mordant composed of 1 oz. of chlorate of potash to 5 ozs. of 
 hydrochloric acid and 19 ozs. of water. 
 
 In the case of “ The Tryst ” the whole of the needle-work, 
 as it appears in the first state, was executed at once, and 
 bitten for five minutes. The distant foliage and sky were then 
 stopped out, and the plate was bitten for five minutes more; 
 after which much of the roof and pathway, and portions of 
 the low shrub by the arbour were stopped. Then followed 
 successively—a biting for ten minutes, a stopping out of the 
 remainder of the roof, the lighted side of the arbour, and the 
 figure; a biting for thirty minutes, a stopping out of the re¬ 
 mainder of the walk, parts of the tree-stems and branches, 
 and the paler lines of the foliage; and a biting for forty 
 minutes, which completed the plate except the foreground 
 laurel, which was treated with a strong solution of nitric 
 acid. 
 
 In the subject of “ The Barn Door ” all the needle-work was 
 executed together, except in the dark passage under the roof, 
 where the lines were left very open to admit of enrichment 
 

 
 
 
 * 
 
 o '■ 
 
 • 1 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
METHODS OF WORKING. 
 
 3 1 
 
 later on, and the plate was bitten for five minutes. The dis¬ 
 tance and the straw in the bay were then stopped out, and a 
 further biting for five minutes given. This was followed, 
 successively, by a stopping out of the light side of the upright 
 support inside the barn, much of the near barn doors, and of 
 the straw in the foreground; a biting for ten minutes, a 
 stopping out of the distant door, and upper part of the lintel 
 of the near door; a biting for thirty minutes, and a stopping 
 out of the figure, the fowls, the remainder of the straw in the 
 foreground, the lintel, and all the remainder of doors and 
 walls except very dark lines of joints. At this point the dark 
 hollow under the roof received a large amount of enrichment, 
 some of the timbers, on the other hand, being partially 
 stopped out. The plate was then bitten for seventy minutes, 
 and all stopped out except the darkest hollows under the 
 roof, which were treated with nitric acid. 
 
 The plate of “The Larch Wood” was executed by successive 
 needlings, as follows. The present impression is hand- 
 wiped, a richer one appearing later on to illustrate the chapter 
 on printing. The mordant used was of the strength of 2 ozs. 
 of chlorate of potash, 10 ozs. of hydrochloric acid, and 88 ozs. 
 of water; but the temperature was low, the plate having been 
 executed in winter. 
 
 The first sitting (a very short one) was devoted to the out¬ 
 lines and dark markings upon the pale stems of the nearer 
 trees—the darkest shadows and lines in the tangled under¬ 
 wood of the foreground—the crouching cat—and the hollow 
 beyond the dead rabbit. The plate was then bitten for ninety 
 minutes. At the second sitting the remainder of the tree- 
 stems were outlined, and their darker portions completed in 
 somewhat close work, but, as much of these stems was 
 hidden by a veil of sprays, those portions were left for sub¬ 
 sequent work. At the same sitting much of the heavier 
 branch work and underwood was also needled, and the dark 
 hollows of the foreground further worked upon. After the 
 second sitting the plate underwent a biting of thirty minutes, 
 
3 2 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 at the expiration of which, the greater portion of the sprays 
 and smaller branches of the trees were needled, the fore¬ 
 ground much worked upon, and the horizontal work upon 
 the half-shadowed tree to the extreme right was also put in. 
 And, after another biting of thirty minutes, the needling of 
 the sprays and foreground was completed, together with the 
 open horizontal shading upon the nearer tree-stem to the left. 
 A final biting of thirty minutes completed the etching, at the 
 close of which the heaviest lines had been bitten for a 
 hundred and eighty minutes, and the others, according to 
 depth, ninety, sixty, and thirty minutes respectively. The 
 plate was afterwards enriched with dry-point work, and by 
 the same means the grey tint was also given to the stem 
 nearest the spectator. 
 
 A comparison of the plates will probably afford some 
 idea of the advantage referred to above as attending this 
 latter method of working, when it is desired to express the 
 transparency of shadow, or the tangled intricacy of fore¬ 
 ground detail. 
 
 The accompanying small plate of “The Brook”* was exe¬ 
 cuted par couvertures , and the greater part of the needle-work 
 was finished upon the spot, when the writer was from home, 
 
 * The plate of “ The Brook ” was intended to illustrate the first stanza of Tenny¬ 
 son’s poem of that name. In spite of the sage advice which the elder Mr. Weller 
 so impressively delivered to his son upon the subject of “ talking poetry,” the writer 
 is tempted to transcribe the following lines, which accompanied the presentation of a 
 copy of the etching to a friend. 
 
 “ I come from haunts of coot and hern, 
 
 I make a sudden sally, 
 
 And sparkle out among .the fern, 
 
 To bicker down a valley.” 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 So sings the streamlet, through the gkn 
 With soften’d murmur stealing, 
 
 Unto the changeful race of men 
 A changeless life revealing. 
 
 So sang the bard, with tuneful ease 
 His pregnant lines inditing, 
 
 In word-wrought pictured images 
 The streamlet-life reciting. 
 
METHODS OF WORKING. 
 
 33 
 
 and without the necessary appliances for biting in. In all 
 the darker portions the lines were left very open, in order to 
 receive further work at a later period. The plate was then 
 bitten in four stages, cleaned, and a proof taken, and, having 
 been regrounded, much enrichment was added by means of 
 bitten work, and, ultimately, of dry-point as well. 
 
 It is a matter of frequent observation that lines which have 
 been executed after the plate has undergone a long immersion 
 in the mordant bath are more readily attacked by the acid, 
 and are widened with greater rapidity than those executed 
 before the commencement, or in the earlier stages of the 
 biting process; and that the ground, after long immersion, 
 ceases to afford to the copper as complete a protection as it 
 did at first. It must be borne in mind that both in Mr. 
 Haden’s original process, and in the above modification of 
 it, the ground over the entire plate is undergoing this weaken¬ 
 ing effect of the mordant during the whole time of immer¬ 
 sion. This, unless guarded against, might lead to foul biting 
 in passages where it would be fatal to the purity of the 
 
 So sang the bard—Ah ! not for me 
 That flowing verse to follow, 
 
 To mock the magic minstrelsy 
 With feeble voice and hollow. 
 
 Rather I’ll try a lowlier task. 
 
 (Each to his calling proper.) 
 
 A needle-point is all I ask 
 Upon the polish’d copper. 
 
 And let me take one foreground “ bit ” 
 From all the wealth beside me, 
 
 And soothly, simply pencil it, 
 
 With Nature here to guide me. 
 
 Perchance, like message voyaging 
 Beneath the carrier’s pinion, 
 
 My work, beneath the Poet’s wing, 
 Shall soar through Fame’s dominion. 
 
 Frail offspring of a deathless rhyme, 
 The picture may inherit 
 
 More life within the coming time 
 Than its own strength doth merit. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 lights, and whenever the etcher entertains any doubt as to 
 the integrity or strength of his ground, he should execute the 
 paler passages of his work, bite, and stop them out during 
 its earlier stages. Even where there is no reason for appre¬ 
 hension in regard to the ground, and the precaution above 
 suggested is therefore deemed unnecessary, allowance should 
 still be made, in biting pale passages executed during the 
 later stages of the work, for the increased rapidity with 
 which the mordant then acts upon the plate. 
 
 The methods thus far considered assume that effect is 
 sought by much variation in the depth of biting; and in the 
 case of large plates it is essential that portions should be 
 deeply bitten, in order that power and solidity of work may 
 be insured. In small plates, however, it will often be found 
 that, with a single biting, sufficient variation is attainable by 
 judicious management of the needle-work—either by using 
 needles of various degrees of fineness, or by varying the 
 pressure of the hand in working, causing the needle in the 
 heavier passages to penetrate the copper, and thus to accele¬ 
 rate the action of the mordant. It is needless to point out 
 that, in a plate intended for a single biting only, the dark 
 passages should be closer in work than those which are to be 
 pale—depth of shadow being, as before observed, in propor¬ 
 tion to the juxtaposition of the lines. It has been pointed 
 out that, owing to the comparatively large surface of metal 
 exposed to the acid in a closely-worked passage, and the 
 increased amount of chemical action going on, the tempera¬ 
 ture at that point rises, and in its turn accelerates the action 
 of the mordant, and that, even with a single biting, closely 
 worked lines are thus more rapidly bitten than those which 
 are more open. That in the case of an effervescent mordant 
 the ebullition is more active, and the lines more rapidly 
 widened where they are close together, is true; but there 
 seems reason to attribute this result rather to the mechanical 
 action of the effervescence in causing the ground to break 
 away from the edges of the lines. In comparing, under the 
 
METHODS OF WORKING . 
 
 35 
 
 microscope, a closely-worked passage with an open one on the 
 same plate—both bitten for the same period by a nitric acid 
 mordant—the writer found the actual lines to be all of the 
 same strength, but each line in the close work was flanked 
 on both sides by a broad margin of shallower biting, entirely 
 absent from the lines which were far apart, and due, it would 
 seem, to the breaking away of the ground. In the case of 
 work, on the other hand, bitten by a still mordant, he has 
 found it impossible under the microscope to detect any differ¬ 
 ence between the respective widths of lines placed close to 
 each other, and of those placed far apart, all of which had 
 been subjected to one uniform biting. 
 
 The plan above mentioned of immersing the plate in a 
 bath of the mordant is of comparatively recent introduction, 
 and, as the old practice may under certain circumstances be 
 found convenient, it will be well shortly to describe it. 
 Round the margin of the plate, on its grounded side, a ridge 
 of wax is raised about half an inch in height, converting the 
 plate into a shallow dish which retains the mordant when 
 poured over it. In order to render the joint between the wax 
 and the plate impervious to liquid, a thick iron wire, bent to 
 a suitable curve, and sufficiently hot to melt the wax, should 
 be passed along it, and at one corner of the plate an open¬ 
 ing should be left for the purpose of pouring off the mordant 
 —such opening being at other times closed with a pellet of 
 wax. The bordering wax may be prepared by melting seven 
 ounces of beeswax and twelve ounces of Burgundy pitch 
 together, and adding thereto one ounce of olive oil. It should 
 be then poured into tepid water, and formed into strips for 
 use, and it requires to be slightly warmed before being 
 applied to the plate. 
 
 The method is, of course, inapplicable when the needle¬ 
 work is carried up to the edge of the plate, and the operation 
 certainly involves rather more trouble and delay than the 
 method with the bath. On the other hand, the plan of 
 leaving a margin round the needle-work is for many reasons 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 a convenient one, and the etcher may find the method, old- 
 fashioned as it is, useful in such an emergency as the break¬ 
 ing of his bath when he is far from his base of operations. 
 Even without such a catastrophe, he may when travelling 
 desire to dispense with the encumbrance of a large and 
 heavy bath, and this the plan in question enables him to do. 
 
 IX.— Mordants. 
 
 The subject of working with the needle and that of “biting 
 in ” are so intimately connected that, in treating of the 
 former, it has been found unavoidable to anticipate many 
 things which might have been properly reserved for the 
 present chapter. There are, however, several points which 
 concern the mordant alone, and these now call for discus¬ 
 sion. 
 
 The mordants at present in general use may be divided 
 into two classes, according to their action upon the copper 
 being accompanied or not by ebullition caused by the escape 
 of gas; and, as some rather important consequences flow from 
 this characteristic, it will be well to treat of them separately. 
 Opinions appear to differ as to their relative excellence. 
 The worker with nitrous acid is sometimes heard to inveigh 
 against nitric as being less certain and even in its action, 
 while the worker with nitric condemns the hydrochloric 
 mordant as liable to yield a ragged line, and thus to fail in 
 crispness of biting. The truth is that, as “a good horse 
 cannot be of a bad colour,” so a good etching cannot be 
 executed with a bad mordant—in other words, the excellence 
 of a mordant is proved by its success, and, as first-rate results 
 have unquestionably been obtained from each of the above- 
 named mordants, and some etchers appear to work equally 
 well with either of them, the writer is disposed to attri¬ 
 bute their alleged defects rather to inexperience on the part 
 of the operator, than to any cause inherent in the mordant 
 itself. 
 
MORDANTS . 
 
 37 
 
 The nitric and nitrous acids are so far similar that their 
 action is accompanied by the evolution of much gas, which 
 incessantly rises in the form of bubbles. These increase in 
 size, and, unless removed, form a partial protection to the 
 copper, and thus lead to irregularity in biting. They should, 
 therefore, be from time to time brushed away either by a 
 feather or a small brush of spun glass, or the unravelled end 
 of a piece of string drawn through a glass tube and so held— 
 anything, in short, which will effect the purpose without 
 disturbing the ground. The operation requires close atten¬ 
 tion, but it has this advantage, that it affords a safe guide in 
 estimating the depth to which the biting has proceeded. 
 The ebullition is, of course, lively in proportion to the action 
 of the mordant upon the copper, and an experienced etcher 
 is able, judging by this indication alone, to regulate the 
 biting of his plate without any reference to the time absorbed 
 in the operation. 
 
 Attention has already been drawn to the effect of the 
 mordant in widening the etched line. This is especially 
 noticeable when the biting is accompanied by ebullition, and 
 the form which the section of the line assumes is thus depen¬ 
 dent upon the character of the mordant, and also upon its 
 strength. Mr. C. P. Slocombe, who habitually w r orks with 
 nitric acid, and to whose kindness the writer is indebted for 
 the observations which follow upon the use of that mordant, 
 describes the section as having a V shape, modified in the 
 direction of a parabola. In the case of a “ still ” mordant— 
 such as the hydrochloric—the sides of the section appear to 
 be perpendicular to the surface of the copper at their junction 
 with the latter, though the base of the section is rounded, 
 and it would seem that the ebullition of an effervescent 
 mordant acts mechanically upon the edge of the ground, and 
 thus tends to widen the line at the surface to a degree pro¬ 
 portionate to the strength of the acid employed. M. Lalanne 
 lays down the principle that u strong acid rather widens than 
 deepens the lines; mild acid, on the contrary, eats into the 
 
33 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 depth of the copper,” and the writer, when experimentalizing 
 with very strong nitric acid, and with a ground of no great 
 strength, has found the resulting line take the form, in sec¬ 
 tion, of a shallow segment. The employment of strong acid 
 is, as M. Lalanne elsewhere says, attended with some risk of 
 losing the purity of the line. 
 
 The fumes arising from both the nitric and nitrous mor¬ 
 dants are irritating to the throat and lungs, and it is desirable 
 to have the mouth protected when watching the biting 
 process, and, as the acid stains, and would eventually burn 
 the fingers, the operator should adopt some means of raising 
 the plate from the bath without bringing the hands into 
 contact with it. 
 
 Nitric acid is described in the “ London Pharmacopoeia ” 
 as free from colour, with a specific gravity of 1*42, and it is 
 stated that 100 gr. of the acid are saturated by 161 gr. of 
 crystallized carbonate of soda—by either of which tests the 
 strength of a sample may be estimated. Mr. Slocombe re¬ 
 commends, as most useful for general purposes, a proportion 
 of one part of acid to two of water. The energy of action, 
 however, in biting being immensely dependent on tempera¬ 
 ture, the proportion should be modified according to the state 
 of the thermometer. At a very low temperature equal parts 
 of acid and water will not act very powerfully, whilst at a 
 very high temperature a smaller proportion of acid than one- 
 third will be found to act well. At a temperature of 70° an 
 ordinary plate should not require more than an hour and a 
 half for all stages of its biting with acid constituting one- 
 third of the bath. The very faintest portion of sky might be 
 stopped out after five minutes’ immersion. The shades in 
 the clouds, according to subject and effect, might have ten 
 minutes more, and the extreme distance another fifteen or 
 twenty minutes, according to the effect required. The middle 
 distance might have twenty minutes longer, and the fore¬ 
 ground thirty minutes more. The darkest passages might 
 remain for another ten minutes, or until the ground begins 
 
MORDANTS . 
 
 39 
 
 to break up, after which a lightening process begins, and the 
 work retrogrades. The lines, moreover, usually become 
 rough by a long exposure to the acid. 
 
 Nitrous acid, which is much used as a mordant, is of a 
 deep orange or red colour. It is, in fact, nitric acid charged 
 with peroxide of nitrogen, to which its deep colour is due. 
 Mr. Law, who has had a large experience in the use of this 
 mordant, has kindly furnished the writer with the following 
 suggestions. The proportion should be one-third of acid to 
 two-thirds of water, and the time to be allowed for biting the 
 palest passages should, except in hot weather, be about 
 fifteen minutes. For the passages next in depth an additional 
 period of twenty minutes should be allowed, and thirty 
 minutes for the next, and, for the deepest passages, an addi¬ 
 tional forty-five minutes should be given. The biting is thus 
 divided into four stages of fifteen, thirty-five, sixty-five, and 
 one hundred and ten minutes respectively. 
 
 It is obvious that a mordant which requires the constant 
 attention of the operator to remove the effervescence from 
 the surface of the plate, and at the same times exhales 
 vapours so noxious as to necessitate his protecting his mouth 
 from their attack, is quite unsuitable for use in Mr. Haden’s 
 process of working upon the plate while in the bath, and one 
 of the most important changes which the introduction of that 
 process involved was the use of the hydrochloric mordant. 
 This, according to the formula in the method as originally 
 published, is prepared by dissolving two parts of chlorate of 
 potash in eighty-eight parts of water (which, for the purpose 
 of easy solution, should be warmed), and adding thereto ten 
 parts of pure hydrochloric acid. Its action is unattended 
 with any ebullition, and there is consequently less tendency 
 for the line to become widened than is the case with efferves¬ 
 cent mordants, and it is less exacting in its demand upon the 
 tenacity and adhesiveness of the ground. The proportion of 
 acid to the water being so small, the fumes from the bath are 
 comparatively innocuous, and the hands can be freely placed 
 
4 o 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 in it without inconvenience further than that, unless they are 
 washed before the acid dries upon them, the skin becomes 
 stained. The difference between the colour of the lines 
 etched by the nitric and hydrochloric mordants respectively 
 has been pointed out—the latter mordant has the effect of 
 bronzing the line, while the former simply exposes the pure 
 copper. 
 
 In working with the hydrochloric mordant, a convenient 
 rule is to double the time of each biting for the succeeding 
 one, or to take the degrees of biting mentioned in the last 
 chapter. The following proportions will be found to act well. 
 Assuming ten minutes as the period for biting the palest 
 passages (and with the thermometer at 70°, and the acid in 
 the proportion above stated, this would be the proper time to 
 allow), the whole time required for biting those next in depth 
 would be twenty minutes, and for the other passages, in the 
 order of their depth, the whole times would be forty, seventy, 
 one hundred and twenty, and two hundred and forty minutes 
 respectively. 
 
 To the worker with an effervescent mordant, the action of 
 which is much quicker than is the case with the hydrochloric, 
 this may seem an inconveniently long time for the biting to 
 continue. But it must be borne in mind that with the still 
 mordant attention to the process is unnecessary. Assuming 
 the ground and the mordant to be in proper state, the plate 
 ‘may be fearlessly left in the bath until the calculated time for 
 its withdrawal arrives. 
 
 The proportion of eighty-eight parts of water is that best 
 suited for working in the bath out of doors, when considerable 
 time is required for the execution of the needle-work. When 
 the needle-work and biting-in are done separately, and greater 
 rapidity in biting is desired, the proportion of water may be 
 reduced to thirty-eight parts. 
 
 The mordant is said to lose strength in course of biting 
 more rapidly than is the case with nitric acid. The writer’s 
 experience does not bear this out. Bearing in mind its repu- 
 
MORDANTS. 
 
 4 
 
 tation in this respect, he has often been surprised to find with 
 what vigour an old bath will act. Certainly a bath which has 
 been previously used seems to attack the copper in the 
 first instance more readily than one which is perfectly fresh. 
 
 A mordant of “ chromic acid ” has been recommended, 
 prepared as follows :—Three parts of bichromate of potash are 
 dissolved in sixteen parts of warm water, to which are added 
 four parts of sulphuric acid. It is free from noxious exhala¬ 
 tions, but is so slow in action as to be practically of little use, 
 and it is so dark in colour that the plate requires to be re¬ 
 moved from the bath in order that the effect upon the copper 
 may be observed. 
 
 It was the writer’s intention to illustrate this part of his 
 subject with etched examples, showing the depth of biting 
 obtained by each mordant at a given temperature and during 
 various periods suitable to each. Such examples, however, 
 are in reality less useful than might be anticipated, owing to 
 the problem being complicated by so many extraneous con¬ 
 siderations. Coppers are not all of the same density—acids 
 are not of uniform strength—and, although an even tempera¬ 
 ture may be maintained by artificial means, it is by no means 
 certain that it is temperature alone which affects the rate of 
 biting, which, there seems reason to believe, is dependent also 
 on other atmospheric conditions. Much diversity in depth is 
 also occasioned, especially in the paler bitings, by the degree 
 to which the needle has been allowed to penetrate the copper, 
 the practice of different etchers varying much in this respect. 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to add that, although we may begin 
 with the mordant at a certain strength, such strength is 
 gradually lessened, and eventually lost as the acid becomes 
 charged with copper. In facing this apparent maze of 
 difficulty and doubt, let the young etcher comfort himself by 
 adopting the maxim (the only one on which he may implicitly 
 relyj, experientia docet . 
 
 In addition to the ordinary methods of biting, that of 
 electro-etching should be noticed. It is thus described in 
 
42 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 Cooley's “ Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts ” :—“ If two 
 plates of copper be connected with the opposite ends of a 
 voltaic battery, and placed in a vessel containing very dilute 
 sulphuric acid, the plate connected with the copper of the 
 battery will be attacked by the anion oxygen which is 
 released during the decomposition of the acid. This destruc¬ 
 tive action can be localised at pleasure by covering certain 
 parts of the plate with a protecting stratum of varnish— 
 ordinary etching ground, for instance. In the practice of 
 electro-etching the drawing is scratched in in the usual way 
 through an ordinary ground; a stout wire is then soldered 
 to the plate, and this, as well as the back of the plate, is 
 coated with sealing-wax varnish. Thus prepared, the plate 
 is placed in a suitable decomposition cell ppposite to a plate 
 of somewhat similar size, and the two are connected respec¬ 
 tively with the copper and zinc of a ‘ Daniell's ’ cell, or the 
 silver and zinc of a ‘ Smee’s * cell. After about ten minutes 
 the plate is removed, washed, and dried; and, when the 
 fine work has been stopped out with Brunswick black, it is 
 returned for another space of ten minutes. By alternately 
 exposing the plate to the action of the decomposing fluid and 
 stopping out parts of the work, the required gradation in 
 tints is obtained." Electro-etching has the advantage of 
 being free from the exhalation of any deleterious gas, but 
 the apparatus required, involving a battery and an extra 
 copper plate, is more cumbrous, and the process itself more 
 complicated than is the case with the ordinary methods of 
 biting, and it does not appear to have been adopted for 
 artistic work to any considerable extent. 
 
 X.—After-processes. 
 
 The plate having been bitten to the depth desired, is now 
 cleaned, both front and back, from the ground and stopping- 
 out varnish, which may be done either with spirit of turpen¬ 
 tine or benzole, or, if the plate be slightly heated, with a 
 
A FTER-PROC ESSES. 
 
 43 
 
 little sweet oil. The solvent should be poured upon the 
 plate, and distributed by means of a stiff hog’s-hair brush, 
 the use of which will facilitate the breaking-up and solution 
 of the ground. When the latter is thoroughly dissolved, the 
 whole may be blotted off with blotting paper, and the 
 cleansing finished with a rag and a little fresh solvent. 
 
 A first or trial proof may then be taken, but it is rarely 
 the case that a plate, other than one of the simplest cha¬ 
 racter, yields at this stage satisfactory results without more 
 “ sophistication ” in the printing than is desirable, and in 
 elaborate etching, or where much enrichment is sought, the 
 processes hitherto described are executed with direct reference 
 to, and as the ground-work for, much supplementary work. 
 
 The use of a deeply bitten line in connection with mezzo¬ 
 tint has already been mentioned, and its effect in imparting 
 transparency pointed out. With a similar object, it is often 
 desired to emphasize certain leading lines of an etching to 
 the exclusion of others, to effect which the best plan is to 
 lay a transparent ground, such as is hereafter described, 
 thickly over the whole passage, and then to run the needle 
 along and clean out those lines which it is proposed to 
 deepen, which should then be bitten with strong nitric acid. 
 Lines so treated, if selected with judgment, impart great 
 vigour and transparency to the work, rivalling in solidity 
 and power the heavy work of the burin, while they are free 
 from the mechanical and laboured character inseparable 
 from all burin work. 
 
 But it often happens that, either from miscalculation of 
 the effect of a passage in connection with its surroundings, 
 or other cause, the biting is found to be deficient in depth 
 over a considerable section of the plate, and, when this 
 includes intricate work which it would be tedious to re¬ 
 needle, a better plan is to lay a “ re-biting ground,” which 
 protects the unbitten surface of the copper, while it leaves 
 the lines open for the attack of the mordant. Where the 
 lines have been firmly bitten this is easily accomplished, but 
 
44 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 in the case of tenderly bitten work it is an operation of ex¬ 
 treme delicacy, so difficult of achievement that in Paris 
 etchers are in the habit of intrusting their plates for this 
 purpose to a skilled operator who devotes himself to the 
 practice of laying re-biting grounds. In such hands the 
 process becomes practically certain in its results, and the 
 method is often adopted of biting in many successive stages, 
 between which the plate is cleaned and successive proofs are 
 taken. The etcher is thus enabled to feel his way gradually 
 to the depth necessary for his line, and the process of biting, 
 no longer resting upon calculations of time, or estimates of 
 relative strength, becomes one of simple observation. The 
 practical certainty now obtained in laying re-biting grounds 
 is in great measure due to the introduction of the roller, the 
 use of wfiich has been already described in the fourth chapter. 
 In laying a re-biting ground, the roller should be very thinly 
 charged with the paste, in order to avoid filling up the bitten 
 lines, and for the same reason it is essential to use it with the 
 least possible degree of pressure—the mere weight of the 
 instrument being sufficient, when the plate is even, to insure 
 the requisite contact, and it is generally sufficient to pass the 
 roller twice over the part to be covered, the second application 
 being at a right angle to the first. It is, however, obvious 
 that, in order that the roller when applied with so slight a 
 pressure, as above indicated, should reach the surface of the 
 copper uniformly, the latter should be absolutely even, and 
 the fact that this is rarely the case constitutes a considerable 
 difficulty. It may be partially overcome by using a short 
 roller, and for re-biting grounds the rollers are made of much 
 smaller dimensions than those mentioned in the description 
 before given of the implement, but, even with a short roller, 
 it is often found that the plate is too uneven to admit of the 
 ground being applied equally without filling up some of the 
 more delicate lines, and when this is the case the dabber 
 must be employed. 
 
 This implement has also been already described. In 
 
A FTER-PROC ESSES. 
 
 45 
 
 using it for laying a re-biting ground, it is usual to spread 
 the latter first upon another plate from which the dabber is 
 charged, and the ground is then transferred to the plate 
 which is intended to be re-bitten—both plates being, of 
 course, heated when the ground is such as to require melt¬ 
 ing. But in order to avoid filling up the more delicately 
 bitten lines, it is essential that the ground should be applied 
 most sparingly, and it will generally be found that^a dabber 
 which has been used in the ordinary way for the first coating 
 of a plate is already sufficiently charged with ground without 
 any addition. The dabber should be applied in vertical 
 touches, and as lightly as possible. If any pressure be used, 
 or a sidelong direction be given to the touch, the lines are 
 almost certain to be filled up. The difficulty of securing 
 protection to the surface of the plate while using a film of 
 such extreme tenuity is only to be surmounted by going over 
 the passage again and again with the most patient care, and 
 for this purpose it is better to work with a coloured ground 
 the film of which is more observable than that of one which 
 is absolutely colourless. 
 
 Assuming all possible precautions against failure to be 
 taken, the process remains one of great delicacy, and is 
 rarely free from risk, and when the young etcher, after 
 spreading with infinite pains a re-biting ground over some 
 favourite but too faintly bitten passage, sees the plague spot 
 of foul biting appearing where it should not, and sullying the 
 fair and hitherto unblemished purity of the copper, while the 
 lines which he intended to re-bite persist in ignoring the 
 presence of the mordant, he will be disposed, in bitterness of 
 spirit, to agree with a great modern etcher, whose advice is 
 above all things “ never to under-bite,” nor to rely upon 
 re-biting for making good an original defect. 
 
 In the above process of re-biting the lines are both deepened 
 and widened, and, when it is successfully carried out, they 
 retain all their original sharpness of definition. In certain 
 exceptional cases this quality may be of less importance than 
 
46 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 to obtain greater fulness of tint, and it may be desired to 
 widen the lines without deepening them. This may be easily 
 accomplished by pouring over the plate previously cleaned a 
 thin solution of Japan varnish or Brunswick black in turpen¬ 
 tine, which when dry affords protection both to the unbitten 
 surface of the copper, and partially also to the bitten lines 
 into which the solution runs. At the sharp edge, however, 
 of the escarpment which forms the side of the bitten lines the 
 solution will not rest, and here the mordant attacks the 
 copper, and thus widens the line without deepening it. Lines 
 thus treated have a peculiar character, but the process should 
 be restricted to the heavier portion of the work, as when 
 applied generally to the plate the effect is apt to be flat. 
 And, as the lines are widened with great rapidity, care must 
 be taken that the process be not pushed too far. 
 
 The best way, however, of imparting richness to a thinly 
 worked passage is by fresh lines, either interspersed with or 
 crossing those already laid, and either bitten or worked with 
 the dry-point. Of the latter we will speak presently. For 
 fresh-bitten work the plate has to be re-grounded, and, in 
 order that the lines already executed may be clearly seen, 
 the fresh ground should be more or less transparent. The 
 bronzed line of the hydrochloric mordant is easily seen 
 through a slightly coloured ground, but when the nitric 
 mordant is used, a white ground formed of wax and gum 
 mastic, in the proportion of about five parts of the former to 
 three parts of the latter, is recommended. 
 
 The ground, in the usual form of a ball, should be rubbed 
 over the plate previously heated, care being taken that the 
 lines already existing are filled, and the film should be made 
 of uniform thickness by means of the dabber, which should 
 also insure that the unbitten surface of the copper, and 
 especially the edges of the existing lines, receive their 
 necessary protection—a point less easy of observation with 
 a white transparent ground than with one whose colour 
 differs from ‘that of the pure copper. 
 
A FTER-PROCFSSES. 
 
 47 
 
 Upon the plate so re-grounded the fresh lines are to be 
 worked in the usual way, but it may be well to observe that 
 the needle in working is apt to enter and run along the pre¬ 
 viously bitten lines unless care is taken to draw the fresh 
 lines, as nearly as may be, at a right angle to the old. 
 
 The mordant for fresh-laid work should be of the same 
 strength as for original biting, but for re-biting bitten lines it 
 should be used weak, in consequence of the extreme thinness 
 of the ground. The method of applying it may vary with 
 circumstances. If the work to be bitten be distributed over 
 the whole plate, the plan already described of immersing the 
 plate (previously varnished at the back and edges) in a bath 
 of the mordant may be adopted. When, however, the pas¬ 
 sages to be operated upon are isolated, the mordant is more 
 conveniently applied by means of a small glass tube (Fig. 5), 
 of about a quar¬ 
 ter of an inch in 
 diameter, open 
 at both ends, 
 but tapering at 
 
 one of them nearly to a point, and having the other end 
 fitted with a hollow india-rubber bulb, such as one of the 
 ordinary feeding-bottle nipples before it has been pierced. 
 In order to charge the instrument, the bulb should be com¬ 
 pressed between the finger and thumb, and the narrow 
 end inserted in the mordant, which, on the pressure being 
 relaxed, will mount into the tube. And it may be thence 
 expelled—drop by drop, if need be—and applied to the plate 
 where necessary by simply renewing the pressure upon the 
 bulb. The same implement will also serve to remove the 
 acid from the plate during the continuance or at the end of 
 the biting process, and (where nitric acid is being used) will 
 thus avoid the necessity of brushing away the effervescence. 
 
 When enrichment is required in a passage of great delicacy, 
 it is better as a rule to execute it in dry-point, a method of 
 working which now calls for description. Strictly speaking, 
 
4 8 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTTS ON ETCHING. 
 
 this is rather a process of engraving than of etching—a term 
 which should be limited to bitten work—but the practice of 
 dry-point is so constantly combined with that of etching 
 proper, that no account of the latter would be complete 
 without some reference to it. The dry-point line is made 
 by simply scratching the copper with the needle, and its 
 strength and character depend much upon the pressure used, 
 but more upon the ridge of metal—technically called the 
 “ bur ”—which the needle turns up in its passage. The bur 
 retains the ink when the plate is wiped for printing, and, in 
 the hands of a competent printer, it imparts to the proof the 
 valuable and well-known effect of velvety richness so charac¬ 
 teristic of the work. This effect is not suited to every sub¬ 
 ject, or to every passage, and, in cases where the clean and 
 simple line is preferred, the bur must be removed by means 
 of the scraper. But its removal materially reduces the 
 strength of the line, and hence it is necessary, before dry¬ 
 pointing a passage, to decide whether, and to what extent, 
 the bur is to be allowed to remain—a much heavier pressure 
 upon the needle being required for a given strength of line 
 when it is intended that the bur should be removed than 
 when it is to be left. In using the scraper it should be placed 
 flat upon the copper, its edge at a right angle to the line to 
 be operated upon, and the instrument should be used in the 
 direction of the line. It should be held lightly in the hand, 
 and allowed to play over the surface of the plate. The degree 
 to which the bur has been removed should be from time to 
 time ascertained by rubbing over the line a mixture of lamp 
 black and tallow, and then wiping the plate; or a similar 
 result may be obtained by charging the finger with powdered 
 whiting, and rubbing it gently across the line. To avoid 
 the difficulty of not being able to see the dry-point line when 
 first executed, it is sometimes recommended that the plate 
 should be grounded in the usual manner, and smoked as for 
 biting—the ground being removed as soon as the dry-point¬ 
 ing is completed, and before scraping. With a little practice, 
 

 
AFTER-PROCESSES. 
 
 49 
 
 however, the difficulty, such as it is, will probably be found 
 to vanish of itself. 
 
 The accompanying plate, which represents a scene upon 
 the river Llyfnant, in North Wales, has been worked entirely 
 in dry-point, none of the lines having been bitten. And the 
 effect is in great measure due to the varying degree in which 
 the bur has been allowed to remain upon the plate. 
 
 The sharpening of the needle for dry-point work is a 
 matter upon which difference of opinion appears to prevail— 
 some operators being in favour of the needle being sharpened 
 with a cutting edge, while others contend that it should be 
 round. In truth, the sharpening should depend upon the 
 work to be executed. When the lines to be laid are ap¬ 
 proximately straight lines, or their freedom is a matter of 
 little or no importance, it is well to have the needle sharpened 
 to a cutting edge; in fact, it is a good plan to have one 
 ground after the manner of the blade of a penknife—one great 
 advantage being that when the point becomes blunted by 
 use it is more readily sharpened than when the section of 
 the needle is round. But for lines in which freedom of 
 handling is required, a point so sharpened would be found 
 unmanageable, and a round section is to be preferred. 
 
 A needle burnished as before described should afford 
 perfect freedom of manipulation. With one unburnished 
 much depends upon the position in which the implement is 
 held, freedom of movement being best secured by holding 
 the needle as nearly as possible perpendicular to the plate. 
 It has been pointed out by Mr. Hamerton that less bur is 
 caused when the needle is so held, than when it is used in a 
 slanting direction. 
 
 It sometimes happens that a plate has been too heavily 
 bitten, and it becomes necessary to reduce the depth of the 
 lines. When a large portion of the plate has to be so treated, 
 the best plan is to plane it down with willow charcoal as 
 described in the second chapter. But when the defect 
 embraces a small area only of the plate, or a single line or 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 speck of foul biting, the use of the “ snake stone ” is to be 
 preferred. This may be procured in the form of slender 
 pencils which can be sharpened to a rounded point, so that 
 its application can be effectually localised at pleasure. Its 
 action is more rapid than that of the charcoal, but it leaves 
 the surface of the copper rough, and this necessitates a slight 
 supplementary planing with the charcoal, which, in its turn, 
 should be followed by polishing with crocus powder and oil. 
 Another effectual method of reducing small passages or 
 single lines is by means of the burnisher used with consider¬ 
 able pressure, and when the biting has extended far down 
 into the copper, the surface of the latter may be scraped or 
 cut away with the scraper. 
 
 The accompanying prints from the finished plates of “ The 
 Tryst” and “The Barn Door” (the latter appearing as our 
 frontispiece) will serve as illustrations of some of the after¬ 
 processes above described, and they should be compared with 
 the prints from an earlier stage of the same plates which 
 appear in connection with the chapter upon “ methods of 
 working.” 
 
 In the case of “ The Tryst,” a fresh ground was laid upon 
 the plate, and some of the leading lines in the stem of the 
 nearest fir-tree were re-needled, and deepened with nitric 
 acid. The pale lines on the posts which carry the arbour 
 roof, and some additions to the distant trees beyond the figure, 
 were also needled and bitten with the hydrochloric mordant 
 for five minutes. The paler portions of the nearest tree-stem, 
 the roof of the arbour seen between the tree and the margin 
 of the plate, the lighter parts of the arbour wall, and some of 
 the lines on the pathway were then reduced by means of the 
 burnisher. The arbour roof received much tinting by means 
 of dry-point, and dry-point lines were added to the figure, the 
 pathway, and the posts—from all of which the bur was 
 removed. The dark hollows of the fir-trees were also en¬ 
 riched with some heavy dry-point work, and here the bur was 
 allowed to remain. 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 5i 
 
 In the plate of “ The Barn Door,” the additions were con¬ 
 fined to dry-point, and they consist of enrichment in the 
 distant trees, the door beyond the figure, and the fowls in the 
 foreground, passages of shadow on the straw in the barn 
 and on the floor, and added lines on the nearer doors and in 
 the foreground. And the lines in parts of the framework of 
 the doors were reduced by burnishing. 
 
 It often happens that, in removing foul biting, or reducing 
 over-bitten lines, the surface of the plate becomes so far 
 depressed that the etched work within the area operated 
 upon either altogether fails to print, or yields a comparatively 
 feeble and deadened impression. In such cases, the surface 
 must be levelled up by hammering at the back of the plate, 
 which for this purpose should be placed face downwards upon 
 a flat and polished anvil of steel—the spot to be operated 
 upon being ascertained by means of a pair of calipers. 
 
 Before the plate is handed to the printer, the edges should 
 be smoothed and bevelled to get rid as well of foul biting, 
 due to the chipping of the varnish, as of the sharp front edge 
 of the copper. In default of this being done, the edge of the 
 plate is apt to leave an unsightly mark round the proof, if it 
 does not actually cut through the paper, which it not unfre- 
 quently does in the case of Japanese paper. The bevelling is 
 easily accomplished with a rough file, to be followed by a 
 finer one, and finished with a burnisher. 
 
 XI.— Printing. 
 
 In bringing the plate to completion by any of the after¬ 
 processes above described, there is a manifest danger of 
 carrying the application of them too far, unless progress is 
 from time to time reported by the taking of trial proofs, and 
 the etcher will generally find it answer his purpose to have 
 the means of taking these in his studio. In default of this, 
 unless he is in the immediate neighbourhood of some com¬ 
 petent printer of etchings, it is difficult for him to become 
 
52 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 aware of the state of his work. And it should be observed 
 that, for the purpose of testing the capabilities of a plate, it 
 is not of the slightest use resorting to an ordinary copper¬ 
 plate printer, the treatment in printing of a copper-plate 
 engraving and that of an etching being perfectly distinct, 
 and conducted upon dissimilar, not to say antagonistic, 
 principles. Even when ready access is obtained to a good 
 printer, and assuming that he is always at liberty to take a 
 plate in hand the moment it is presented to him (in most 
 cases a very large assumption indeed), some time is unavoid¬ 
 ably lost in resorting to him, and that step-by-step method 
 of proceeding which, in working up a plate, is so great a 
 desideratum, and which, when the etcher has the means of 
 proving his work at hand, is easily compassed, becomes out 
 of the question. The etcher, therefore, is strongly recom¬ 
 mended to furnish himself with the requisite apparatus for 
 proving his plates at home, and to make himself so far 
 master of the printing process as to be able to dispense with 
 professional assistance, at least until the plate has been 
 brought to completion. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be convenient to describe in the first 
 place the appliances necessary for plate-printing generally, 
 and afterwards to explain their use, pointing out such special 
 modifications of the printing process as are adopted in the 
 case of etchings. 
 
 The press (Fig. 6), which first claims attention, consists of a 
 frame furnished with two horizontal rollers, an upper and a 
 lower one, between which travels a horizontal plank or table 
 carrying the plate, and moved as the upper roller is turned 
 by means of levers attached to it—the pressure exerted by 
 the rollers upon the plate being regulated by screws working 
 in the frame. In the selection of the press the following 
 points should be observed. The plank should be of sufficient 
 width to allow some margin beyond the largest plate for 
 which it is likely to be required. Etchers often begin with 
 plates of exceedingly modest dimensions, and are sometimes 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 53 
 
 led, on economical principles, to content themselves with a 
 small press of, say, eight or ten inches width. The economy 
 seems false. As increased practice leads to greater facility 
 and certainty of manipulation, it is often desired to work 
 upon a larger scale, and the annoyance is great to find one’s 
 self stopped in so doing by the limited size of the press. It 
 is therefore recommended that the plank should be not less 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 than fifteen inches in width; which, as the frame extends 
 beyond it, will admit half a sheet of paper of imperial size, 
 and will easily accommodate a plate of which the shortest 
 measurement is fourteen inches. The plank was formerly 
 always made of wood; at present it is not unfrequently 
 made of iron, and each material has its advocates. On the 
 one hand it is urged that the rigidity of the iron is apt to 
 crush the ink out of the more deeply bitten lines, and thus 
 
54 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 to impair the crispness and transparency of the darker 
 shadows—and it is a fact that some of the best printers both 
 in Paris and London have, after using iron, abandoned it, 
 and returned to the wooden plank. The advocates of iron, 
 on the other hand, maintain that this tendency can be 
 neutralised by placing a sheet of cardboard upon the plank, 
 but which, it is presumed, would require frequent renewal. 
 It is sometimes said that an iron plank being planed by 
 machinery can be made more true than a wooden one. The 
 latter, however, can be made quite as true as the former, if 
 sufficient skill, care, and time are devoted to its manufacture, 
 as is proved by numberless cases. 
 
 Of the rollers, which should of course be turned perfectly 
 true and smooth, the upper one is the smaller, and for a 
 plank of fifteen or sixteen inches wide, should not exceed 
 five inches in diameter. It is often made larger than this, 
 but it is obvious that the shorter its radius, the smaller will 
 be the surface of the roller acting upon the plate at any 
 given moment of its passage through the press, and the 
 more concentrated will be the pressure—resulting in economy 
 of labour in turning the levers. The lower roller should be 
 of twice the diameter of the upper. With the object of 
 economizing labour, the levers for turning the upper roller 
 should be not less than three feet six inches, measuring from 
 the axis of the roller to their extremity. 
 
 When the plank is of wood, a thin plate of zinc of its full 
 size should be laid upon it to carry the plate, for which it 
 affords a more compact bedding. It also tends to distribute 
 the pressure on the plank, which would be otherwise con¬ 
 fined to a restricted area corresponding to the size of the 
 plate. The plate for heating the copper plate has been 
 already described. 
 
 The ink for plate-printing can be procured ready-made at 
 any establishment where printing materials are sold, but the 
 etcher is strongly recommended to make his own. Besides 
 the advantages of insuring the use of the best materials in its 
 
PRINTING . 
 
 55 
 
 manufacture, and of having the ink fresh as required, it is 
 upon its character both as to colour and consistency that the 
 success of the printing process in great measure depends, 
 and it is desirable that these should be varied to suit the 
 plate about to be operated upon. In the case, for instance, 
 of a faintly bitten plate, a strong ink—strong both in colour 
 and in the oil—should be used to insure the lines retaining 
 as much colour as possible; for a heavily bitten plate it is 
 often desirable, on the other hand, to moderate the depth of 
 the ink by toning it. The ink is made by grinding the 
 colours with burnt linseed oil upon a stone slab by means 
 of a muller. The oil should be procured of two strengths— 
 one very strong (much burnt), the other thin, by the mixture 
 of which any desired degree of stiffness may be obtained. 
 The black pigments are generally Frankfort black, a some¬ 
 what variable substance, the best samples of which yield a 
 very rich ink, and are easily ground; or Paris black, which is 
 more brilliant, but requires longer grinding; and they may 
 be toned by such pigments as burnt sienna or burnt umber, 
 or in some cases by a mixture of lake and Prussian blue. 
 The grinding should be carried on until the materials are 
 reduced to the condition of a smooth “ impalpable ” paste, 
 which on being spread by the spatula or finger fails to afford 
 any sign of granulation or grittiness; and, in order that the 
 tint of the ink may be easily observed, it is recommended 
 that the slab should be of a pale colour. The ink is applied 
 to the copper plate by means of a dabber consisting of a short 
 thick roll of cloth or flannel, one end of which is covered by 
 a smooth piece of similar material, and is used for applying 
 the ink, while the other serves for the handle. The muslin 
 for wiping the plate is an important item. It should be of 
 two sorts—one very open, for wiping the ink from the plate; 
 the other fine and soft, for finishing. The best muslin of the 
 coarse kind is made in Paris, where it is said to be a relic of 
 the Second Empire, having been originally introduced to 
 supersede crinoline for preserving the amplitude prevailing 
 
56 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 in the ladies’ skirts of those days, and its manufacture has 
 been continued to the present day chiefly on account of its 
 use in the printing process. It is very open, and at first 
 rather stiff, but loses its stiffness with use. For finishing 
 and retroussage any very soft and fine muslin will serve. The 
 blankets used in printing are also of two kinds—one of a 
 very fine material, like the finest cloth, for “ facingothers 
 of thick soft blanketing, for backing, to go next to the 
 roller. 
 
 The selection of the paper to be used in printing the proofs 
 depends in great measure upon the character of the plate, 
 and it is so much a matter of individual preference that it 
 would be idle to recommend any one kind to the exclusion 
 of others. But it may be useful to enumerate some of those 
 more generally used, pointing out their respective characters, 
 together with any special mode of treatment which these 
 render necessary. And first let us mention, in order to dis¬ 
 card it, the smooth white plate paper used for the printing of 
 engravings, as utterly wanting that picturesque character 
 alone suitable for the printing of etchings. 
 
 Among other English papers, a very serviceable one is 
 that upon which the ordinary prints of “ The Etcher ” are 
 printed, and which has been used in this volume. It is 
 easily managed, readily damped by sponging, and is of a 
 pleasant tone, and its slightly ribbed surface contrasts 
 agreeably with the smoothness of the plate-mark. It is, 
 moreover, suitable for almost every kind of etching. A 
 more costly paper is Whatman’s drawing paper, which is 
 especially adapted to bring out powerful and rich plates ; and 
 a still more expensive one—the cream of English papers—is 
 Whatman’s “ vellum ” paper. This admits of the utmost 
 richness in heavy work, and its exquisite surface gives an 
 especial charm to passages of a more delicate and tender 
 character, but it is whiter than the common Whatman. The 
 latter is a hard paper, and is not easily damped, requiring 
 very long soaking, and to be passed through the press— 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 57 
 
 several sheets together, between two plates of zinc—with 
 light pressure. This insures thorough and uniform damping, 
 while the excess of moisture is driven out. The “ vellum ” 
 paper is softer, and takes up water freely, and it may be 
 damped by mere sponging. Much of the old English and 
 Dutch paper, from which the size has perished, is most 
 valuable for the printing of etchings, having acquired from 
 age a delightful tone, and showing generally a strong water¬ 
 mark, which adds to its picturesque character. A modern 
 Dutch paper by Van Gelder is of excellent quality and 
 appearance, but somewhat over-sized. The size, however, 
 can be sufficiently removed by soaking the sheets in tepid 
 water, and passing them through the press as before 
 described. 
 
 In the present day a preference is often shown for Japanese 
 paper—a term that includes a large number of very dissimilar 
 products, both in colour and texture—some being of a soft 
 velvety character, yielding excellent results with every kind 
 of work, while others are so harsh and “ dry ” that no amount 
 of “ treatment ” in wiping the plate will avail to render the 
 proofs other than thin and staring. The high reputation of 
 Japanese paper seems to have been originally due to a certain 
 silkiness which the manufacture of former years succeeded in 
 imparting to its surface, and it is said that silk was formerly 
 used in making it. 
 
 At present, as we learn from Miss Bird's “ Unbeaten 
 Tracks,” it is made from shoots of Broussonettia papyrifera — 
 plants of Buddlia and Hibiscus being also used mixed with 
 the bark of the former, and the above-mentioned silky texture 
 is rarely met with. Perhaps the nearest approach to it is to 
 be found in some of the Japanese tissue paper, manufactured, 
 it is said, for copying purposes, in which the writing pene¬ 
 trates many sheets together. It is far too tender to be used 
 separately in printing, but, when used as an applique upon a 
 thicker Japanese, after the manner of India paper, it gives an 
 exquisite surface for the printing of delicate work. The 
 
PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 58 
 
 difficulty of its manipulation, however, renders it unsuitable 
 for large plates. 
 
 But although the old silkiness may be no longer attainable, 
 there are other qualities which render many of the modern 
 Japanese papers, when in the hands of a skilful printer, of 
 high value. They are for the most part of a delicate pale 
 straw colour, and being semi-transparent, they impart to the 
 proof, when mounted on a backing of pure white, a certain 
 tenderness of hue unattainable by any other means. The 
 velvety surface of some of them has been already mentioned, 
 and these when properly treated afford proofs of great softness 
 and richness combined, while some of the smoother kinds are 
 admirable for proofs in which clearness is a desideratum. It 
 should be observed, however, that there is always a tendency 
 in these papers to yield proofs of a dry character, and in 
 order to counteract this it is necessary that the plate should 
 be left richer—that is, with more ink upon it—than is neces¬ 
 sary or desirable when dealing with other kinds of paper, 
 while, owing to the peculiar “ felty ” nature which is an almost 
 universal characteristic of the Japanese papers, it is necessary 
 to work with much greater pressure upon the rollers than is 
 otherwise required, in order that the paper may be driven into 
 the finer lines of the plate. 
 
 Owing to the demand which has recently arisen for Japanese 
 paper for the printing of etchings, more care has been devoted 
 to its manufacture for this purpose, with the object of securing 
 greater purity in the pulp, and a smoother surface; and the 
 paper which is now obtainable from the Imperial works shows 
 in these respects an improvement.* The sheets are more 
 uniform in texture, and the surface equal to the finest vellum 
 —for printing they are indeed far superior to vellum—but the 
 colour is almost white, and although for delicate work the 
 surface leaves nothing to be desired, it is not quite so well 
 adapted for heavily bitten plates as some of the “ velvety ” 
 
 * The paper is described as manufactured at Shioshibu-Insatsu-kioku Tokio, 
 Japan. 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 59 
 
 papers to which reference has been made. One advantage it 
 has over other Japanese papers—that there is less tendency 
 for the proofs to be “ dry ” in character. 
 
 Japanese paper can be easily damped, being of a spongy 
 nature; the danger, in fact, is that it should be too wet, in which 
 case it resists the ink, and a faint grey proof is the result. In 
 common with all thin and delicate papers, it should be used 
 with a backing of thick plate paper, also damped, to protect 
 it from any accidental crease or irregularity in the blanket. 
 
 To consider now the manipulation of the plate in process of 
 printing. The printer, having at hand a supply of paper pro¬ 
 perly damped, and before him a prepared ink and dabber on 
 the slab, the heating-plate at a temperature somewhat too 
 high for the hand to bear, several pieces of muslin, and a 
 mahogany board upon which the plate is laid while being 
 wiped, and which, in order to insure that the hand in wiping 
 shall work at a proper angle to the plate, should be about forty 
 inches from> the ground, or about at the level of the elbow, 
 proceeds as follows :—The plate having been previously 
 cleaned with turpentine, is placed upon the heater, until it 
 becomes as hot as the hand can comfortably bear it, and the 
 ink is applied with the dabber in a thick coat over the whole 
 of the surface. For the first proof it is also necessary to rub 
 the ink well into the heavy lines with the finger, as the dabber 
 sometimes fails to penetrate them. 
 
 The plate is then removed from the heater, and the excess 
 of ink roughly wiped from it with coarse muslin used in 
 straight strokes, much, however, being left both in the lines 
 and also on the surface of the plate to be utilised in the sub¬ 
 sequent more delicate wiping which it now undergoes. For 
 the purpose of this secondary wiping the muslin should be so 
 arranged in the hand that it will continue to present to the 
 plate a smooth surface, free from rucks or creases. In order 
 to accomplish this, the printer, having selected the portion of 
 the muslin with which to work, holds it outspread upon his 
 left palm, while he takes the nearest margin of the muslin in 
 
6o 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 his right hand, and brings it underneath the left. The latter 
 is then withdrawn in order to bring forward the opposite 
 margin, and place it in its turn beneath the right hand. At 
 least three smooth layers of the muslin are thus arranged, 
 behind which the remainder is gathered up, and tucked in 
 round the edges, so as to form a cushion of a size to rest con¬ 
 veniently within the hollow of the hand. The muslin is then 
 warmed on the heater, and applied with a constant swift 
 circular motion, but without much pressure, in wiping the 
 plate—the result being that the ink is left in the lines, but 
 wiped from the surface of the plate in various degrees accord¬ 
 ing to the requirement of the subject. The muslin, charged 
 as it is with ink, never thoroughly cleans the copper, but in 
 the cleanest parts leaves a very thin tint which in strong 
 lights, or where clearness of effect is desired, must be removed 
 by wiping with the hand charged with whiting, or with the 
 finger covered with fine muslin—or, in minute lights, with a 
 pointed pencil of wood. The plan is sometimes adopted of 
 hand-wiping the whole surface of the plate, as is done in the 
 printing of line-engravings, but, except in the case of etchings 
 requiring peculiar brilliancy of treatment, it is not to be 
 recommended. Especially is this the case in printing upon 
 Japanese paper, which, as we have seen, has a general ten¬ 
 dency to yield “ dry” proofs ; and the same observation holds 
 good when printing from a steel or steel-faced copper plate. 
 Steel being much harder than copper, parts with the ink more 
 freely, and there is a corresponding danger of over-wiping, 
 and, unless this is counteracted by especially rich treatment, 
 a bare and staring proof is the result. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to add that, as the ink when cold 
 adheres strongly to the plate, the latter, as well as the muslin, 
 should be kept warm in order to insure easy management. 
 
 The wiping of the plate being finished, the margin and 
 edges should be cleaned with turpentine. 
 
 The plate now undergoes, when necessary, a further pro¬ 
 cess of enrichment in the much reviled, but quite justifiable 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 61 
 
 and oftentimes indispensable, process of retroussage, For 
 this it is again placed on the heater until very hot, and the 
 printer, armed with some of the softest and finest muslin, 
 which should be also heated, and gathered up as for wiping 
 the plate, draws the ink over the edges of the lines on to the 
 surface of the copper by gently dragging the muslin across 
 them. By this means their strength is increased according 
 to their depth and the quantity of ink which they hold, and 
 a soft richness of effect obtained which adds much to the 
 beauty of the proof, resembling the velvety character which, 
 in dry-point, results from leaving the bur upon the plate. 
 Retroussage is, in fact, the equivalent in pure etching to the 
 bur in dry-point, and is equally admissable in practice, and 
 it may be observed that the wiping of the plate for the latter 
 involves at least as much skill and “ treatment ” as for the 
 former.* 
 
 Objections have been raised to the practice not only of 
 retroussage , but also of leaving any tint upon the surface of 
 the plate—to all treatment, in short, by which the effect of 
 the plate can be enhanced in printing; and it is urged that 
 all enrichments should be in the plate itself—worked by the 
 etcher’s own hand—instead of being left to be supplied by 
 the printer in preparing the plate for the press, and the great 
 name of Rembrandt is adduced as an authority in support of 
 the practice advocated. 
 
 A recent writer in the Pall Mall Gazette maintains that in 
 Rembrandt’s method of printing “ all ink except what is 
 lodged in the lines is removed,” and “what he intends to 
 appear in the proof, that, and that only, his etching-point 
 traced upon the plate ; ” and further, that “ throughout the 
 darkest of the shadows the magnifying-glass reveals particles 
 of white paper seen through the crossings of the lines.” To 
 this it must be answered that enrichment by added lines and 
 
 * Those who object to retroussage in printing should, in order to be consistent, 
 condemn in an equal degree the use of the bur, the effect of which is entirely 
 dependent upon the management of the plate in wiping. 
 
62 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 enrichment by skilful wiping are tw ”0 totally distinct matters, 
 differing as much in effect as in execution, neither of which 
 can be taken to supply the place of the other. Of this 
 Rembrandt was well aware, and we have already seen, when 
 discussing the plate of “ Christ healing the Sick/’ that, where 
 he considered such enrichment desirable, he did not hesitate 
 to leave a tint of ink upon the surface of the plate. It is true 
 that throughout a large portion of the deep shadow paper is 
 visible, but in all the deepest passages (if we may judge from 
 the fine impression of the first state of the plate in the Print 
 Room of the British Museum) no amount of magnifying will 
 disclose the least glimpse 6f it. Moreover, any one ac¬ 
 quainted with the technique of etching, and who has studied 
 Rembrandt’s work in its entirety, must be aware that he 
 frequently resorted both to the bur in dry-point, and to 
 retroussage in order to increase the richness of his shadows. 
 It is further objected that enrichment by the printer’s treat¬ 
 ment is an unsound method, owing to the uncertainty of its 
 results, and that, however charming the effect may be, the 
 practice is wrong in principle, and will be fatal to sound 
 draughtsmanship, because it makes the artist dependent upon 
 the craftsman. But it is difficult to see how this dependence 
 is to be avoided, unless the former is prepared to print his 
 plates himself—an operation for which he is not in all cases 
 endowed with the requisite time and skill. Practically, the 
 distinction between artist and craftsman is in this instance 
 somewhat shadowy. Does an etcher who prints his own 
 plates remain an artist only so long as he has the needle in 
 his hand, and become a craftsman on taking up the printing 
 muslin ? The ink is but a pigment, and its distribution over 
 the surface of the plate is in all respects as artistic a process 
 as that of applying a glaze or scumble to an oil painting, 
 and unless a printer is gifted with the seeing eye, and has 
 something of the artistic instinct strong within him, it will be 
 useless for him to attempt to deal with high-class etchings. 
 It is, of course, for the etcher to decide in the first instance 
 
PRINTING . 
 
 63 
 
 Upuii tne treatment—including, not only the wiping of the 
 plate, but such matters as the choice of paper, and of the 
 colour and consistency of the ink—with all of which the 
 question of wiping is most intimately blended—which best 
 carries out his intention, but, when that is settled, it can as a 
 rule be far more consistently and uniformly followed by the 
 skilled and practised hand of the printer, than it would be by 
 the etcher himself. The certainty and uniformity of the 
 result, again, depend not only on the skill of the printer, but 
 also on the degree to which the effect is left to be supplied. 
 When the plate has been sufficiently worked, and nothing 
 but mere enrichment is required, the result in competent 
 hands is practically certain. When, on the other hand, the 
 work is very open, and has to be supplemented with heavy 
 masses of ink, it is impossible to insure absolute uniformity 
 in the proofs, and it may be necessary freely to weed out 
 from the tirage such as may not bear out the artist’s 
 intention. 
 
 The inconsiderate outcry which has been raised against 
 retroussage , and all the kindred methods of enhancing the 
 effect of etchings, appears to be due to a misconception as 
 regards the object of the etcher’s art, akin to that which 
 leads some uninstructed people to judge etchings according 
 to canons applicable only to line-engravings. Even in the 
 case of these latter it is a mistake to suppose that the wiping 
 of the plate is the simple and unsophisticated process which 
 the objectors to retroussage would have us believe. There 
 is, in fact, in the wiping of a line-engraving much manage¬ 
 ment required to bring out the full quality of the plate, 
 although to the unpractised eye the traces of it are not 
 obvious, and in a proportionate degree the engraver becomes 
 dependent upon the printer. An etching, however, which 
 should embody the direct expression of the artist’s thought 
 stands on a different footing, and the only sound principle 
 would be to select that treatment which best conduces to 
 such expression, irrespective of the question whether it does 
 
6 4 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 or does not conform to the requirements of a purism which 
 concerns another branch of art.* 
 
 The expedients in question, when judiciously adopted, are 
 of high value, but they are, like many other good things, 
 liable to abuse, and one may sympathize with the writer in the 
 Pall Mall Gazette in his dislike of them when they are abused. 
 His denunciation, however, is much too sweeping and abso¬ 
 lute, and the notion that Rembrandt never resorted to them 
 is at variance with the facts of the case. 
 
 In order to exhibit the nature and the degree of enrichment 
 which an ordinary amount of retroussage imparts to a proof, 
 an impression is added from the plate of “The Larch Wood,” 
 so treated. It should be compared with the simply hand- 
 wiped impression from the same plate, forming one of the 
 illustrations to the chapter upon “ Methods of Working.” 
 
 The proofs when printed should be dried separately, and 
 this not only as regards the paper, but the ink also—so that, 
 in the after-process of flat-drying, the lines may retain their 
 relief. When they are thoroughly dry, the paper should be 
 again slightly damped, and each proof, protected by tissue 
 paper, should be placed between thick millboards, and so 
 dried under heavy pressure. This will flatten the paper at 
 the edge of the plate-mark and elsewhere without affecting 
 the lines, and the full character of the heavily bitten work 
 will be preserved. 
 
 The number of proofs which a copper plate will yield 
 without deterioration depends much upon the manner of its 
 execution. In dry-point, where the effect of the line is due 
 to the presence of the bur, the limit is soon reached, and in 
 
 * The confusion of thought prevailing upon this subject is curiously illustrated by 
 the use which one of the objectors makes of an anecdote related of Mr. Samuel 
 Cousins. It appears that Mr. Cousins once reprimanded a printer who proposed to 
 force the effect of one of his plates by special treatment. Mr. Cousins is an engraver 
 in mezzotint, and, as it may be presumed that his plates receive their full desired 
 enrichment in the mezzotinting process, it seems natural that he should object to 
 their receiving anything more at the hands of the printer. But why the fact of the 
 mezzotinter obtaining richness in one way should debar the etcher from doing so in 
 another, is not so clear. 
 
PRINTING. 
 
 65 
 
 the case of very delicate dry-point work not more than three 
 or four proofs—sometimes not more than one—can be taken 
 without serious deterioration being observable. The heavy 
 pressure which the plate undergoes in its passage through 
 the press tends to flatten the bur, and so reduce its power, 
 but a more destructive agent is to be found in the wiping. 
 However thoroughly the ink may be ground, it still retains 
 something of its granular character, and, as the muslin 
 charged with it passes over the surface of the plate, it acts 
 like emery in reducing, and before long entirely removing, 
 the bur. To this kind of deterioration bitten work is less 
 liable than dry-point, but even bitten work suffers when the 
 lines are closely placed. Here the ridge of metal which 
 separates contiguous lines becomes reduced, and the clear 
 crispness originally characteristic of the work gives place to 
 confusion and dulness, which increase with every succeeding 
 proof. 
 
 The impossibility of obtaining more than a very small 
 number of satisfactory impressions rendered the process of 
 etching upon copper unsuitable for book illustration, or other 
 similar purpose, and tended to restrict its application to those 
 cases of artistic expression in which a limited issue was held 
 to be no disadvantage. At the present day, thanks to the 
 discovery of a method of electro-plating copper with iron, all 
 this has been changed, and the adoption of high-class etch¬ 
 ings for illustration has become very general. The coating 
 of iron, so thin that the most delicate and faintly-worked 
 lines remain for all practical purposes unaltered, affords, to 
 bitten work at least, a protection amply sufficient for all 
 ordinary requirements. After a long course of printing, 
 indeed, the iron begins to wear away, and the copper reap¬ 
 pears, but it is easy, by removing the former and applying 
 a fresh film, to reinstate the protection as at first, and some 
 thousands of impressions may thus be taken without any 
 perceptible deterioration occurring to the plate. In the case 
 of dry-point, however, the protection is less complete; for, 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 although the iron enables the bur to withstand the abrasion 
 of the muslin for a much longer period than would be pos¬ 
 sible in its unprotected state, still after many proofs have 
 been taken the bur will show signs of wear, and when this 
 takes place, it is obvious that a simple renewal of the iron 
 will fail to replace it. Resort must, in fact, be had to a 
 reworking of the passage. 
 
 The tendency of a steel, or rather iron-faced, plate to yield 
 dry impressions has been already pointed out, and the neces¬ 
 sity of neutralising it by special treatment in wiping the 
 plate. There is, perhaps, no more crucial test of the skill 
 of a printer than his success in combating this tendency, 
 whether arising from the state of the plate itself, or from the 
 nature of the paper used. In the skilful hands of that accom¬ 
 plished printer, Mr. F. Goulding, it is, as a rule, impossible 
 to detect any difference between proofs taken from the iron¬ 
 faced plate and those pulled from the “native” copper—both 
 being equal in point of richness. But it is only from such 
 hands that uniformity in this result may be expected, and 
 the treatment involves an extra expenditure of time. 
 
 The plate, in its passage between the rollers, parts with the 
 greater portion of the ink with which it is charged; but a 
 certain quantity remains behind in the lines, and this, if 
 allowed to become dry, tends to fill up the latter, and so to 
 reduce their strength for subsequent printing. Hence it is 
 necessary, before laying the plate aside after printing, to 
 remove from it every particle of ink, to effect which a sufficient 
 quantity of turpentine to cover it should be poured over the 
 plate, and allowed to remain until the ink is seen to rise from 
 the lines and become diffused over the surface. The turpen¬ 
 tine and ink together may then be removed by rubtftng the 
 plate with “ mosings ”—the soft shreds and scrapings pro¬ 
 duced from leather during its manipulation under the hand 
 of the currier. Should the ink have been allowed to dry in 
 the lines, it may yet be removed by a strong solution of 
 caustic potash, which should remain on the plate until, the 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 67 
 
 oil being dissolved, the other constituents of the ink have lost 
 their cohesion. 
 
 XII.— Conclusion. 
 
 The foregoing chapters have had reference exclusively to 
 etching upon copper—a material which seems to answer best 
 the artist’s requirements. Where a large number of im¬ 
 pressions are required, however, the superior hardness of 
 steel has recommended it for use, and upon steel such etch¬ 
 ings as were required for book illustration have for the most 
 part been executed. Since the discovery of the electro¬ 
 plating process the disparity between steel and copper plates 
 in respect of durability has practically disappeared, while 
 copper presents a distinct advantage over steel in being less 
 liable to rust. Zinc, which also enjoys a similar advantage, 
 is a favourite material with many etchers, and is less costly 
 than copper. It yields proofs of great richness, and will 
 afford a larger number of them than the unprotected copper 
 before showing signs of wear, although not so many as the 
 copper when plated with iron. It is, indeed, possible to coat 
 the zinc with iron, but only in an indirect way, involving the 
 double process of first plating the zinc with copper, and then 
 applying the iron to the latter. This of course increases the 
 expense of the protection, and also tends to fill up the finer 
 lines of the work. Both in the case of steel and zinc the 
 foregoing remarks as to grounding and working the plate 
 hold good. The mordant generally used for steel is dilute 
 sulphuric acid—that for zinc may be the hydrochloric mor¬ 
 dant already described, but, as the action of the latter upon 
 zinc is exceedingly rapid, either the period of biting must be 
 proportionately shortened or the mordant much diluted. 
 
 Some remarks upon the subject of etching from nature, 
 and the equipment necessary for its convenient pursuit, may 
 not be out of place. Upon the desirability of the practice, 
 and the distinct gain in expressiveness which follows its 
 
68 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 adoption, it is, perhaps, unnecessary at this day to insist. In 
 most forms of artistic expression the difference between work 
 executed with constant and direct reference to nature, and 
 that copied from studies, is, to the educated eye, sufficiently 
 manifest, but there is probably none in which this difference 
 more obviously declares itself than in the precise and delicate 
 work of the etching-needle. It often happens, of course, that 
 the motif of an etching is such as can be only thoroughly 
 worked out in the studio. Even when such is the case, it 
 will be found that the work will be all the better, all the more 
 full of interest, from the details being wrought direct from 
 nature, while in other cases such a method of practice will be 
 found indispensable. But, from what has been previously 
 said in reference to methods of working, it will be readily 
 understood that, in etching from nature, it will not be 
 sufficient for the needle-work alone to be done upon the spot. 
 When an etcher finds himself face to face with an intricate 
 landscape, or indeed any subject other than the very simplest, 
 he will become aware that, in order to grapple satisfactorily 
 with the complexities of distance, or of shadow, or texture, it 
 is as necessary to bite as it is to draw “ from nature/' and 
 that oftentimes the processes of needle-work and biting must 
 be carried on pari passu . He should, in fact, travel armed 
 with all necessary appliances for needling the plate, biting, 
 and stopping out, although it will be generally found most 
 convenient that the preparation of the plate, including the 
 grounding and varnishing at the back, should be effected at 
 home. 
 
 For the purpose of carrying a stock of prepared plates 
 without injury when travelling, a strong wooden box should 
 be provided, deep enough to receive lengthways the longest 
 plate intended to be carried, and furnished at its opposite 
 ends with V-shaped grooves. Into each pair of the grooves 
 a plate (having one of its dimensions of a corresponding 
 uniform length) will slide, so that the box will accommodate 
 any plate, not exceeding in length its internal depth, one 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 69 
 
 dimension of which will fit the grooves. For smaller plates 
 it will be necessary to have flat panels bevelled at the ends 
 to slide into the grooves, and upon these the plate can be 
 fixed by a few small screws placed close to its edges, so that 
 the plate is clipped by the screw-heads, and thus retained in 
 its place. The box should have its corners bound with hoop 
 iron, and the lid should be furnished with strong hinges and 
 lock. 
 
 In addition to the travelling box above described, a light case 
 (Fig. 7) is necessary for carrying the single plate for the time 
 being in process of execution, and it will be found convenient 
 to have this so far corresponding in dimension to the other 
 as to fit similarly sized plates. It should take the form of a 
 shallow box, about a quarter of an inch in depth, the lid con¬ 
 sisting of a plain panel furnished on its under side with two 
 fixed longitudinal strips of wood, so placed that, when the 
 box is closed, they fit just within its hollow, and, pressing 
 against the plate, retain the latter in place. The strips should 
 be bevelled so as to touch only the edge of the plate, one 
 dimension of which should exactly correspond with the in¬ 
 ternal width of 
 the'box. At one 
 end of the latter 
 the woodwork 
 should be pro¬ 
 longed for about 
 an inch and a 
 half, and pierced 
 with a hole of 
 about half an 
 inch diameter, to 
 receive the up- tig. 7. 
 
 right stem of a 
 
 small mirror. And in the bottom of the box, on the out¬ 
 side, a brass plate should be inserted to receive a screw, by 
 which it may be fixed to a tripod stand, and thus form a 
 
70 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING . 
 
 table for out-door work. The legs of the stand should be 
 made to slide telescope-fashion, in order that they may be 
 adapted to any inequality of surface in the ground. 
 
 The mirror is useful for the purpose of reversing the draw¬ 
 ing of any plate which professes to be a portrait, in order 
 that in the proof the scene or object represented may appear 
 as it does in nature. Some etchers disregard this process of 
 reversal, considering that, artistically, the composition is the 
 same, in whichever way it may be viewed. But, although 
 this way of looking at the question may be theoretically 
 sound, still it is the case that the public do not always 
 occupy the standpoint of the artist, but, when a picture is 
 presented to them professing to represent some familiar 
 scene or object, they have a weakness for beholding it 
 in its accustomed guise. This betrays, perhaps, a sad 
 want of the power of abstraction; but so it is, and the etcher 
 should deal with the world as he finds it. It is quite feasible, 
 after a little practice, to effect this reversal by a mental 
 operation, in the act of drawing, and without the intervention 
 of a mirror, and, as the latter is accompanied with its own 
 difficulties and annoyances, the etcher is counselled to 
 practise drawing in reverse, and thus render himself inde¬ 
 pendent of the mirror. He will find the practice much less 
 difficult than he would expect. But, assuming that he 
 should consider the difficulties inherent in the process of 
 etching to be sufficient for his encountering, and prefer 
 such ease as the mirror is calculated to afford, the following 
 suggestions may be found useful. The mirror (Fig. 7) 
 should not be too large or heavy to be held conveniently 
 in the hand, and it should be attached by a hinge to a 
 strong wooden lid, which will serve both as a protection 
 to the glass when closed and a base for its proper 
 adjustment during work, and the hinge should be fur¬ 
 nished with a screw, by the tightening of which the mirror 
 may be retained at any desired angle. The outside of the 
 lid should be furnished with a brass plate forming a screw 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 V 
 
 socket into which is fixed the end of a brass stem, to be 
 either held in the hand, or fastened, by a small side screw, 
 in the before-mentioned hole at the end of the box or table. 
 In working on a large plate it will be found most convenient 
 to hold the mirror in the hand. The mirror, if made of 
 ordinary looking-glass, is apt to give a double reflection, 
 which in bright weather and at certain angles is most dis¬ 
 tracting in its effect. But this is, perhaps, a less evil than is 
 experienced when the mirror is made of black, or blackened 
 glass. In this case so much of the light is absorbed that, in 
 dark weather, the details of all shadowed objects are entirely 
 lost to the eye. 
 
 The appliances for biting should include a large 8o-oz. 
 stoppered bottle for the prepared mordant, and a smaller 
 bottle of hydrochloric acid, for the manufacture of fresh 
 mordant when requisite, together with a supply of chlorate 
 of potash. Also, for partial biting, a small bottle of strong 
 nitric acid solution, and the above-described glass tube, with 
 its india-rubber bulb for the application of it. All these, 
 together with a small thermometer, a glass pipette, and tube 
 of india-rubber, the object of which will presently appear, 
 can be packed in a wicker case, which should be divided into 
 partitions and padded. 
 
 The bath for the mordant is usually of porcelain. But 
 porcelain is a somewhat fragile material, and, if large plates 
 are used, will be found unnecessarily cumbrous to carry. In 
 this case, the writer would recommend the substitution of a 
 light, shallow wooden box or tray, about two inches in depth, 
 over which, when required to be used as a bath, a stout sheet 
 of india-rubber may be placed. The only difficulty attending 
 its use occurs in emptying it, and this is readily overcome by 
 means of a piece of india-rubber tubing used as a syphon. 
 The bath being slightly tilted, one end of the tube, previously 
 notched to allow the free passage of the liquid when pressed 
 against the bottom of the bath, should be placed in the 
 mordant at its deepest point. In the other end of the tube a 
 
7 2 
 
 PRACTICAL NOTES ON ETCHING. 
 
 glass pipette (Fig. 8) should be inserted, and, the mouth of 
 the operator being applied to the latter, the mordant should 
 be drawn into the tube by suction. In order to prevent the 
 liquid reaching the mouth, the pipette should be furnished, 
 at about its centre, with a bulb, into which the liquid would 
 
 Fig. 8. 
 
 be seen to rise long before entering the upper part of the 
 pipette. As soon as the tube is charged with the mor¬ 
 dant, the pipette is withdrawn, and the free end of the tube 
 placed within the mouth of the bottle, into which the whole 
 contents of the bath will speedily flow. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 After-processes, 42, et seq. 
 
 Asphaltum solution, 8. 
 
 Bath for mordant, 71. 
 
 Bevelling, 51. 
 
 Biting, 21. 
 
 depth of, 38. 
 
 Blankets, 56. 
 
 Bordering wax, 35. 
 
 Bosse’s ground, 7. 
 
 Burnisher, 50. 
 
 Calipers, 51. 
 
 Charcoal, 5. 
 
 Chloroform, 12. 
 
 Choice of plate, 2. 
 
 Chromic acid, 41. 
 
 Cleaning plate, 4, 66. 
 
 Close work, biting of, 34. 
 
 Colouring ground, 14. 
 
 Dabber for ground, 10. 
 for printing, 55. 
 in re-biting, 45. 
 
 Drying proofs, 64. 
 
 Dry-point, 47. 
 
 Ebullition, 36. 
 
 Electro etching, 41. 
 
 Enrichment, 46. 
 
 Etching ground, 5. 
 
 Frankfort black, 55. 
 
 Grinding ink, 55. 
 
 Ground—5. 
 
 Bosse’s, 7. 
 laying, 9, 46. 
 colouring, 14. 
 smoking, 15. 
 re-biting, 45. 
 transparent, 46. 
 
 Gum mastic, 6, 8. 
 
 Haden on needle, 18; process in bath, 27. 
 Hamerton silvering process, 15. 
 Hammering of plates, 3, 51. 
 
 Hand-wiping, 60. 
 
 Heating plate, 9. 
 
 Huson whitening process, 16. 
 
 Ink grinding, 55. 
 toning, 55. 
 
 Japan varnish, 6. 
 Japanese paper, 57. 
 
 Law on nitrous mordant, 39. 
 Laying ground, 9. 
 
 Mastic, 6. 
 
 Methods of working, 25. 
 Mirror, 69. 
 
 Mordant— 
 
 effect on ground, 33. 
 action of, 20. 
 effect on lines, 20, 37. 
 on close work, 34. 
 ebullition of, 36. 
 strong and weak, 37. 
 nitric, 38. 
 nitrous, 39. 
 hydrochloric, 39. 
 application of, 47. 
 Muslin, 55. 
 
 Nature, etching from, 67. 
 Needle— 
 steel, 16. 
 glass, 18. 
 
 for Haden’s process, 18. 
 sharpening, 17, 49. 
 Needle-work, 19. 
 
 Nitric acid, 38. 
 
 Nitrous acid, 39. 
 
 Oil, burnt, 55. 
 
 Paper— 
 
 English, 56. 
 
 Dutch, 57. 
 
 Japanese, 57. 
 
 Par couvertures , 27. 
 
 G 
 
INDEX. 
 
 74 
 
 Paris black, 55. 
 
 Paste etching, 11. 
 
 Plate— 
 
 choosing, 2. 
 cleaning, 4. 
 bevelling, 51. 
 hammering, 3, 51. 
 steel-facing, 65. 
 box, 68. 
 
 Printing—51. 
 press, 52. 
 ink, 55. 
 muslin, 55. 
 paper, 56. 
 
 management of plate in, 59. 
 
 Re-biting, 43. 
 
 Reducing, 49. 
 
 Rembrandt, 24, 61. 
 Re-touching, 46. 
 
 Retroussage , 23, 61. 
 
 Reversing, 70. 
 
 Roller, 11, 44. 
 
 Scraper, 48. 
 
 Slab and muller, 55. 
 
 Slocombe on nitric mordant, 38. 
 on section of line, 37. 
 
 Smoking ground, 15. 
 
 Snake-stone, 50. 
 
 Steel, etching on, 67. 
 
 Steel-facing, 65. 
 
 Stopping out, 26. 
 
 . Table for heating, 9. 
 
 for out-door work, 69. 
 
 ; Toning ink, 55. 
 
 Tube for ground, 13. 
 for mordant, 47. 
 for bath, 71. 
 
 Varnish— 
 
 stopping out, 26. 
 for back of plate, 26. 
 
 Wax, solution of, 8. 
 bordering, 35. 
 
 Whiting, 4, 48, 60. 
 
 Willow charcoal, 5, 49. 
 
 Wiping plate, 60. 
 
 Zinc, etching on, 67. 
 
 PRINTED BY J. S. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON. 
 

J5M4 -x\x