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4664. EARLY Specimens of Stereotyped Border Ornaments covered with a copper face. Lent by B. West, Esq. 4665. STEREOTYPE Border Ornaments with a copper facing fastened to a roller to adapt it for Cylindrical Printing, 1847.

Lent by B. West, Esq.

4666. AN Electrotype of a page of the Bible from a Gutta Percha Mould taken in 1848.

Lent by B. West, Esq.

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HE invention of Lithography proceeded from a purely accidental discovery made by Alois Senefelder, of Prague, about the year 1796. Having tried to get impressions from copper-plates upon which he had written with greasy ink, he one day used this ink for writing a chance memorandum on a piece of polished stone that lay handy on the occasion. Fate afterwards impelled him to attempt to raise this writing with acid, and to print from it. His essay was so far satisfactory that he determined to prosecute his idea, and though at first only partially successful, he ultimately founded an art which has made more rapid strides towards perfection than any other.

The principles of lithography rest upon several chemical facts. The first of them is that greasy substances adhere strongly to calcareous stone; the second, that greasy substances have great affinity for one another, and equally great antipathy to water; the third, that calcareous stone readily imbibes moisture. The process of the art, therefore, is to draw the subject reversed in greasy ink upon a finely-polished limestone, of the kind found chiefly at Soldfern, in Bavaria; then to brush the whole over with a solution of gum-arabic, to prevent the lines from spreading and to assist the unoccupied parts of the stone in resisting the

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ink. When this has remained on some little time, it is washed off, and the stone damped with a wet cloth and inked with a leather roller. A proof is now taken on the press, and if it is correct the stone is etched by being washed over with weak nitric acid; then it undergoes repeated processes of gumming and washing, and finally is rubbed over with turpentine to get rid of the writing ink. The stone is now fit for use, and is laid on the bed of the press. To print from it a wet cloth is first passed over it, and then it is inked with the leather roller; the ink will not remain on the wetted surface of the stone, but will adhere to the greasy design. A sheet of paper is now laid on it, and upon that a plate of zinc; over all comes the leather tympan. The whole is now raised by a lever to the level of the scraper placed across the press, and is passed under it by turning a handle. On the lever power being removed, the stone-bed is returned to its proper position, the tympan raised, and the printed sheet removed. This process is repeated for each subsequent impression.

Lithographic printing is now executed on cylinder machines, the first of which was introduced into this country from France in 1860. In this process, which is much more expeditious than printing by hand, the damping, as well as the inking of the stone, is performed automatically, by rollers specially contrived for the purpose.

In the comparatively short space of some sixty or seventy years, lithography has been raised from its earliest infancy to a state of efficiency which enables intricate oil and water-colour paintings to be reproduced with a faithfulness which borders on the marvellous. Of late years photography has been engaged as a handmaid, and the limits that will be reached by the sister arts combined cannot even be guessed at. The freedom which lithography allows to the artist-greater than that allowed by any other process of printing-renders it especially suitable for the multiplication of works of art.

Copper-plate printing is the process of obtaining impressions from engravings incised in plates of metal. The invention of the art is generally ascribed to Finiguerra and Baldini, of Florence, but some give the honour to Martin Schoengaur, of Antwerp. The engraving of the plates is the work of a special class of artists, and does not in any way concern the printer. His work is of a very simple nature. After the plate has been heated, he daubs the whole of the surface of the plate over with thick ink, which he removes from the parts not intended to print, first with a rag, and then with the palm of his hand, polishing with whitening. When no ink remains, except what lies in the engraved lines, the sheet of paper is laid on the plate, and both passed under the roller of a powerful press, which squeezes the paper into the interstices in the plate and thus transfers the ink from them to it. Copper-plate printing, as may be readily imagined, is a very slow process.

Copperplate Printing, Lithography and Photography. 453

4687.

ENEFELDER'S Press, made from the original Patent Specification taken out in England by Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography in 1801, and actually at work.

Lent by Messrs. Blades, East, and Blades.

4688. A MODERN Lithographic Press for hand power.

Lent by Messrs. Maclure and Macdonald.

4689. A LITHOGRAPHIC Printing Machine.

Lent by Messrs. Newsum, Wood, and Dyson.

4690. CHROMO-LITHO Stones, showing the various stages of the process of printing in colours. Lent by Messrs. Blades, East, and Blades.

4691. A COPPER-PLATE Printing Press, and Engraved Copper Plates. Lent by Messrs. Virtue and Co.

4693. THE Process of Copper-plate Printing.

Exhibited by Messrs. Virtue and Co.

4694. KORAN. A forme of blocks from which the Koran has been printed the blocks produced by Phototype, and a copy of the complete work. Lent by Messrs. Bradbury, Wilkinson, and Co.

4695. LITHOTYPE and printing from stone by the means of transfers Lent by the Lithotype Company. Type and stone, with transfer on it.

from the type.

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ATER-MARKS. A collection of 482 specimens of old
paper from the year 1339 to 1600, being blank leaves cut
off from original and dated records in the Gelderland
Archives, all having different water-marks, in three volumes,
viz. :-

Vol. 1.-1339-1399, 94 specimens.
Vol. 2.-1400-1499, 219 specimens.
Vol. 3.-1500-1600, 169 specimens.

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4715. WATER-Marks.

Lent by Frederick Muller, Esq.

Fifty specimens from the same collection. 1340-1399, II specimens.

1401-1499, 26 specimens.

1509-1579, 13 specimens.

Lent by N. Trübner, Esq.

These collections were formed by the learned author of the History and Antiquities of Gelderland, Mr. G. Van Hasselt (1751-1825), with the object of publishing a work on old paper and paper-marks, of which the prospectus (in French) only appeared (Arnheim, J. H. Macleuran, 1811). A copy of this prospectus and an English translation in the handwriting of Mr. Van Hasselt, are also exhibited. The majority of those in Mr. Trübner's collection are not figured by Sotheby.

4716. WATER-Marks. 40 sheets fcap. folio, with water-marks, from 1540 Lent by Messrs. Smith and Ebbs.

to

4717. WATER-Marks. 2 sheets of paper showing water-marks of the first

French empire.

Lent by Mrs. M. Cowden Clarke.

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