Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/49

 the illustration below, nearly all the lines are white. This is modern wood engraving which has developed this style, and represents the pearls in the hair of the Portrait engraved by Uhlrich which is illustrated (opposite p. 122), and reduced from a full-page illustration appearing in the Graphic.

Etching is upon metal, and wood engraving obviously is upon wood. We now return to metal, and in the enlargement of an eye and portion of the face from the portrait (opposite p. 160), engraved in line upon copper by Masson, the French engraver, the dexterous skill employed by the artist in scratching lines on copper is shown. This is less than half a square inch in area in the original print. But even more marvellous is the enlargement of a portion of Rouen Cathedral from a steel engraving after Turner by Thomas Higham. This engraving is given (opposite p. 222), and as the original print measures only 3-7/8 in. by 5-9/16 in., the microscopic detail and the exquisite delicacy of touch which can produce such a result is nothing short of marvellous. The rose-window exhibits all the details of its tracery, and the carvings of saints, standing in niches, hardly discernible in the original print, come out in remarkable detail in the enlargement as here shown.

But if steel engraving exhibits a fineness of technique and astounding governance of the graver, the examples we give of stipple engraving show a delicacy of handling surprising in its craftsmanship in producing textures and designs. In the enlargement of a minute portion of a small Portrait of Dryden engraved in stipple by Caroline Watson, the