Etching makes prints from lines that acid bites into a metal plate. Like engraving, it is an intaglio method, which means the ink sits in lines below the plate’s surface. The word etch comes from Dutch etsen and German ätzen, words related to “eat.”
How an etching is made
The etcher first covers a metal plate, usually copper, with a layer of wax or varnish that resists acid. Etchers call this layer the ground. With a needle, the etcher draws through the ground and bares the metal. Acid then eats into the bare lines. The longer it works, the deeper the lines and the darker they print. To keep some lines faint, the etcher covers them with varnish before the plate goes back in the acid, a step called stopping out. The printer then rubs ink into the lines, wipes the surface clean and runs the plate through a press under great pressure.
Where etching began
Etching was used to decorate metal, including armor, long before anyone printed with it. Printmakers in southern Germany made the first etched prints around 1500. Daniel Hopfer, an armorer in Augsburg, is thought to be one of the first to print an etched plate on paper. The earliest plates were iron or steel and rusted, so later etchers moved to copper. Albrecht Dürer made 6 etchings on iron between 1515 and 1518, then went back to engraving. Engraving took great skill with the burin, a steel cutting tool, but anyone who could draw could etch.
Callot, Bosse and Rembrandt
Jacques Callot (1592 to 1635) improved the ground with a harder recipe and may have invented the échoppe, a new kind of etching needle. Abraham Bosse explained Callot’s method in the first manual on etching, published in Paris in 1645. It was later translated into several languages. In the same century, Rembrandt became one of the greatest etchers.
Etching or engraving?
Many prints combine etching and engraving on 1 plate. Etched lines keep the same width and end round, while engraved lines swell and taper to a point.
