would print a solid black; the rough surface is then scraped away according to the effect required, those parts most smoothed taking up the least ink, and so producing the highest lights, while the parts least scraped away produce the deepest shadows.

In stipple engraving the effect is produced entirely by dots or holes punched into the plate; it has been much used for the flesh parts in portraits, but very few of the prints in stipple-work have a reputation in art, except the graceful and dainty prints engraved by Bartolozzi and his school towards the end of the eighteenth century.

Bank-note engraving has reached its highest perfection in America. The plates and dies are engraved on steel in the line manner; in addition to this, beautiful mechanical effects are produced by the complicated geometrical lathe. Except with regard to bank-note work, the phrase "a steel engraving" is only a figure of speech; what are so called are really engraved on copper, which is a much mellower material to work in than steel. All the great prints of former ages were done on copper plates, and not on steel, as is sometimes supposed.

In briefly reviewing the most famous engravers we may divide them for convenience into two general classes those who flourished before the middle of the seventeenth century, and those who appeared in the succeeding centuries. The works of the former class, representing as they do the birth, infancy, and youth of the art, are peculiarly

THE HOLY FAMILY

Size of the original print, 7 by 4 inches.

Designed and engraved by Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533).

Lucas van Leyden, contemporary of Dürer, engraved his plates with such delicate lines that they yielded very few good proofs. In the one detail of perspective, he was Dürer's superior.

interesting to the studious connoisseur; they include nearly all the famous "painter-engravers

those who engraved their own designs. Among the critical books of reference on this class of artists one work is pre-eminent; it is Le PeintreGraveur, in twenty-one volumes, by Adam Bartsch, who was the curator of the great collection at Vienna. Bartsch's work, which is written in French, is indispensable to every collector of the older engravings; it is a marvel of critical research, giving a minute description of all the works of each engraver, and describing the earlier and later "states" of each plate, as well as designating the numerous counterfeits that have been made upon the most admired old prints; but as the work only treats of the artists who engraved their own designs, it has no information upon the great line engravers who have reproduced the masterpieces of painting. As a general book of reference upon the famous engravers as well as upon the great painters, Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers is considered the best.

To commence with the earliest engravers of whom we have any record, Finiguerra, who has been already mentioned as the discoverer of the art of printing from engraved plates, took impressions on paper about the year 1440. One very beautiful print of his is preserved in the great public collection in Paris; it is a small composition representing the Nativity, and is crowded with figures. His immediate followers in Italy were Andrea Mantegna, who was born at Padua

in 1431, and Baccio Baldini, who was his contemporary. Fifty years later appeared the greatest of the old Italian engravers in Marcantonio Raimondi, who was born at Bologna in 1487, and died in 1536. Among collectors of the oldest engravings, Marcantonio is a great name, ranking almost with Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. Early in his career he attracted the attention of Raphael, and that master, recognizing the value of engraving as a vehicle for multiplying his own designs, gave Marcantonio employment under his own supervision. So exquisitely correct is the drawing of his figures that connoisseurs profess to see the magic hand of Raphael himself in these faultless outlines. A fine impression of the engraver's portrait of the poet Aretino, the friend of Titian, has been recently sold at auction in London for £780 sterling. Marcantonio was the founder of a renowned school.

Of contemporary German engravers, Martin Schongauer comes earliest. His prints, which are very scarce and high-priced, show force and originality, as well as great technical skill in the use of the graver; but the work of all these early German masters is a little stiff and Gothic in style, though indicating an admirable sincerity and directness of purpose.

But the greatest name in this connection is that of Albrecht Dürer, who was born in the quaint old city of Nuremberg in 1471. Dürer found the art of engraving in its infancy, and carried the technical fineness of it to a perfection that has