Stipple engraver

Stipple engraving is a technique used to create tone in an intaglio print by distributing a pattern of dots of various sizes and densities across the image. The pattern is created on the printing plate either in engraving by gouging out the dots with a burin, or through an etching process.Stippling was used as an adjunct to conventional line engraving and etching for over two centuries, before being developed as a distinct technique in the mid-18th century.

The technique allows for subtle tonal variations and is especially suitable for reproducing chalk drawings.

Stipple effects were used in conjunction with other engraving techniques by artists as early as Giulio Campagnola (c.1482 – c. 1515) and Ottavio Leoni (1578 – 1630), although some of Campagnola's small prints were almost entirely in stipple. In Holland in the seventeenth century, the printmaker and goldsmith Jan Lutma developed an engraving technique, known as opus mallei, in which the dots are punched into the plate by an awl struck with a hammer, while in England the faces of portraits were engraved with stippled dots by William Rogers in the sixteenth century and Lucas Vorsterman in the seventeenth.

An etched stipple technique known as the crayon manner, suitable for producing imitations of chalk drawings, was pioneered in France. Gilles Demarteau used in 1756 goldsmith's chasing tools and marking-wheels to shade the lines in a series of Trophies designed by Antoine Watteau. Jean-Charles François who was a partner of Demarteau further developed the technique and used it to engrave the whole plate. François engraved in 1757 three etchings directly on copper in crayon manner. He then used the technique to etch three plates using different-size needles bound together. Other people who contributed to this new engraving technique included Alexis Magny and Jean-Baptiste Delafosse.William Wynne Ryland, who had worked with Jean-Charles François, took the crayon manner to Britain, using it in his contributions to Charles Roger’s publication A Collection of Prints in imitation of Drawings, and developing it further under the name of "stipple engraving".

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