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Abraham Bosse

On the Manner of Etching with Acid and with a Burin, and of Dark-Manner Engraving, 1645

Description

Maker

Abraham Bosse, 1604 - ca. 1676, French, printmaker

Title

On the Manner of Etching with Acid and with a Burin, and of Dark-Manner Engraving

Year

1645

Medium

Etching, drypoint, and roulette on cream-colored, moderately textured laid paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

etching

Supports

Medium laid paper:off-white red speckled fore, top and bottom edges.

Signature / Inscription / Marks

On pastedown:price and accession numbers.Also, in pen upperleft corner:Ds.

Identification

Edition

First Edition

Place

Paris; France

Type

Credit

Gift of Mrs. Herbert N. Straus

Object Number

51.004

Projects & Publications

Publications

Altered States

Etching in Late 19th-Century Paris

Read Online

Exhibition History

This book, the first technical manual on etching, remained the primary resource available to artists from 1645 through the 1800s. Here, Bosse explains how to place a plate on a printing press. A printmaker himself, he strongly favored engraving—a technique that involves carving into, rather than drawing upon, a copper plate. He advocated the extreme regularity and linearity characteristic of that technique, even when working in etching. By the late 1800s, many etchers no longer were interested in this style, and found Bosse’s language overly technical and formal.

Jacques Callot and the Baroque Print

June 17 - November 6, 2011

The renown of Callot’s technical accomplishments in etching spread throughout Europe partially because of the 1645 publication of this treatise explaining his technique by Abraham Bosse, his friend and pupil. Here, Bosse describes and illustrates how to apply the acid used to bite the plate. The printmaker pours acid onto a plate on a downward ramp that allows it to drain through a hole into a basin on the floor. This procedure is repeated eight or ten times until the plate is adequately bitten (etched). On the following pages, Bosse explains how one must turn the plate sideways while repeating the process so as to give every line equal weight. He then explains how to mask out certain areas with a hard ground made of linseed oil and resin in order to keep them shielded from the chemical if additional etching is required for selected areas.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is On the Manner of Etching with Acid and with a Burin, and of Dark-Manner Engraving with the accession number of 51.004. To request a higher resolution file, please submit an online request.

Feedback

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