Art in Print | Drawing and its Double: The Engraved Plate

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By Andrew Raftery , from Volume 1, Number 2

Among the very first items accessioned by the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (founded in 1877 along
with the school where I teach) was a set of etchings by Salvator Rosa. Although the artist made the plates in the 17th
century, the impressions are from the 1870s, printed in reddish-brown ink on 19th century paper. These prints were
made at the Calcografia in Rome, the worlds largest repository of printing matrices. Subsequent curators have
collected impressions made closer to the artists lifetime and our Calcografia Rosas are now catalogued as restrikes,
but they continue to tell an important story about the early aspirations of collecting institutions in the United States.
Just as casts of Classical and Renaissance sculpture were assembled to bring masterpieces of European art to
American audiences, modern impressions of old plates had a significant place in Americas fledgling cultural
institutions.
RISDs early acquisition of Rosas etchings is a small, if telling, episode in the long history of the Calcografia, now part
of Romes Istituto Nationale per la Grafica. This collection of 23,400 printing matrices was assembled over centuries
from a variety of sources. Pope Clement XII founded the Calcografia in 1738 with a cache of 9000 plates from the
famed Roman print publisher De Rossi. The 19th century added collections of matrices by individual artists, including
plates by Rosa, Volpato, Canova and Piranesi. In addition, new plates reproducing famous works of art and
architecture were commissioned from leading Italian printmakers. Impressions from these plates were kept in stock and
could be ordered. The Calcografia maintained plates in printing condition: popular plates were steel-faced to ensure
longer printing life and plates deemed obscene by Papal censors received appropriate fig leaves.
This pattern of collecting and printing continued into the 20th century. Impressions from the most popular plates were
made as late as the 1970s when it was decided to cease printing and protect the matrices from further wear. Most
importantly, the matrices of important artists such as Giorgio Morandi and Carlo Carra were added to the holdings. In
1986, some 700 plates produced by the Stamperia Romero in Rome were donated, documenting the activity of some of
Italys most progressive artists from 1961 to its closing in the 80s. The Istituto continues to commission and publish
new print projects in its studio while its scholarly mission embraces cutting edge technical and historical research.

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Art in Print | Drawing and its Double: The Engraved Plate

In the first exhibition of its kind, this Spring

the Instituto joined with The Drawing
Center in New York to mount Drawing and
Its Double, an exhibition of 58 intaglio
printing plates made between1528 to 1988
that prompts a reconsideration of matrices
as art, and as objects of value to 21st
century scholars, artists and general
viewers. Printing matrices are an
occasional feature of historical print
exhibitions. Memorable examples include
the engraved silver roundel in the
Metropolitan Museum of Arts 2003 Goltzius
show and the heavily gouged plates in Yale
University Art Gallerys 2009 exhibition Pull
of Experiment: Postwar American
Printmaking. Having worked on displays
including plates for the RISD Museums
2009 exhibition on engraving, The Brilliant
Line (which traveled to Northwestern
Universitys Block Museum), I know how
compelling visitors find the actual plates
when they are struggling to understand
what they are looking at in the prints. In
these cases matrices were used to explain
the objects on display. At the Drawing
Center, curators Brett Littman, Ginevra
Mariani and Antonella Renzitti took the
plates out of the education cases and put
them on the walls in a move that was simply
radical.

http://artinprint.org/index.php/articles/article/drawing_and_its_double

Fig. 1. Giorgio Ghisi, Il Giudizio universale (Ghisi Composite) after Michelangelo (1549),
10 matrices and an additional portrait of Michelangelo, burin on copper, entire composition
122 x 107 cm. Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Inv. 201/1-11.

For an engraver, walking into an exhibition solely devoted to intaglio plates is an exhilarating experience. After all, the
plate is the actual object I make when I work on a print. Though a handful of plates may get shown in historical
exhibitions or at print fairs, their surfaces are often obscured by dried ink, tarnish, or varnishes, or they are disfigured
by cancellation marks or submerged in deep glass cases. The Calcografia plates are beautifully clean and many of
them have not been steel plated to prevent wear. They were mounted in acrylic and hung on the wall, making it
possible to take in the entire object as well as the details. To see the tool marks of the masters was a rare privilege. I

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Art in Print | Drawing and its Double: The Engraved Plate

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had many questions about depth of line, layering of marks, spacing and
effects of wear as I examined the plates with the Optivisor I always carry
when I look at prints. The Drawing Center, thoughtfully, had magnifiers on
hand for visitors who were not so well equipped.
The exhibition
opened with the
plates for Giorgio
Ghisis magnificent
engraving (c. 1548)
after Michelangelos
Last Judgment in the
Sistine Chapel (Fig.
1). Distributed over
10 irregular shaped
plates, the entire
assemblage is over a
meter wide. Fine
impressions of the
complete set are
Fig. 2. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Il Genio
extremely rare. This
della Pittura (1648), etching on copper, 37.8 x 25.2
popular print was
cm. Courtesy of Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica,
Rome, VIC 369.
issued many times
and the plates were
probably well worn
by the time they entered the Calcografia. Perhaps it is only when
viewed as a group of plates that the image has such a strong
Fig. 3. Arnold Van Westerhout, Nuova raccolta di varie e
impact. The oversize scale of the multiple matrices gives some
diverse sorti di fiori (1631), etching on copper, 29.9 x 20.6 cm.
idea of the grandeur of Michelangelos invention, while the
Courtesy of Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, VIC
puzzle-like interlocking shapes imply the seams of the giornata
1469/8.
(days work) in the fresco. It is an imposing sculptural object, with
a physical presence that is only rivaled by some of the
experimental shaped plates from the 1970s, such as those by Umberto Mastroianni and Nino Franchina.
Plates for famous prints by Frederico Barocci, Pietro Testa, Rosa and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione chronicled high
points in the development of Italian etching in the 16th and 17th centuries, but also made the point that sometimes
paper trumps plates, if the paper was pulled early on and the plate had a hard life. The feathery touches in
Castigliones plate for Il Genio della Pitura (1648) (Fig. 2) are still evident, but in other examples, such as the Barocci
Annunciation of 1584/88, the lines are worn and perhaps retouched, suggesting that the image would be better studied

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Art in Print | Drawing and its Double: The Engraved Plate

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in a fine, early impression than in the plate itself. The surprise stars of this section were by lesser-known artists.
Arnold van Westerhouts flower studies after Jacques Bailly (1631) (Fig. 3), offered graceful mixed bouquets rendered
in etching, the forms delicately outlined and shaded without cross hatching. Pure engraving was reserved for the
exquisite calligraphy surrounding the plants. Another highlight was an allegorical frontispiece for a book of artistic
anatomy attributed to Franois Andriot after a sketch by Charles Errard and dated 1691 (Fig. 4). This image depicts a
sculptural group of three skeletons around a draped relief of flayed bodies. It is rendered with incredibly precise burin
work. Its near pristine state of preservation allowed one to study the multiple engraved levels that differentiate areas of
shadow, middle tone and light.
Piranesi was, of course, a central figure. (see Messing About With Masterpieces:
New Work by Giambattista Piranesi) A double-sided plate illustrated the two
sides of his character: the comparatively staid Piazza di Monte Cavallo showed
him as the master of the Roman view. Staged biting created deep atmospheric
space and Piranesis technique of etching linear textures into his exceptionally
wide lines to make them hold ink is evident in the foreground forms. The backside
of the plate was also etched, though this was only discovered in the mid-1960s
during an inventory of Piranesis plates. The image, La caduta di Feronte, was
finally catalogued and a few impressions were printed. It is in the florid rococo
style of the Grotteschi and like that series is dated c. 1748. The scratchy lines

Fig. 4. Franois Andriot (attr.), Anatomia

per uso et intelligenza del disegno (c.
1691), after Charles Errand, burin on
copper, 32.5 x 23.8 cm. Courtesy of
Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome,
VIC 1164/2.

were bitten to many levels and there seems to be some damage that happened in
the acid bath, but it is a marvelous, rhythmic image in which figure, earth,
architecture, water, foliage and clouds swirl in harmony. Apparently, it was not
published in Piranesis lifetime, perhaps because the artist did not consider it
publishable. Turning from this plate to the next in the exhibition, we watch an artist
at the point of failure leap from the muddiness of the unpublished plate to the
brilliant transparency of Carceri XV (Fig. 5). First worked on in 1749-50 and
reworked by 1761, the Carceri plate was a revelation for me, having studied
impressions of the two states of the print over many years. Because the later
revisions were etched more deeply, they cut through the original lines. On paper
the earlier work is less apparent. On the plate the two states seem to exist

simultaneously.
The 19th century witnessed both the pinnacle of virtuoso reproductive engraving and its swan song. The most
stunning example of this genre is Giovanni Folos plate after Antonio Canovas sculpture Ercole e Lica (Fig. 6),
completed before the engravers death in 1836. Canova carefully supervised the production of prints after his
sculptures, directing draftsmen such as Giovanni Tognoli, who made the drawing for this engraving. Emphasizing the
importance of silhouette in his sculptural compositions, Canova chose an ideal vantage point for translation from three
into two dimensions. The contour is not indicated by an outline or even by a dark background, as in the French

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engraver Charles Clement

Bervics 1809 engraving of the
Laocoon. Instead the image is
articulated by a complex system of
curving lines, dots and dashes
that, even in the darkest areas,
maintains an open middle tone.
The tension between a
calligraphic, ultimately flat
configurationa and profound
volumetric rendering is especially
evident when seen on the steelplated copper in the exhibition.
The image is absolutely
holographic from certain points of
view.
Plates such as Folos achieve their
optimum effect when printed with a
Fig. 5. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Capriccio con pilastro ornato con mascheroni, pl. XV delle Carceri
vigorously clean wipe so that the
(1749/50-1761), etching and burin on copper, 41.6 x 55.8 cm. Courtesy of Istituto Nazionale per la
bright white of the paper sparkles
Grafica, Rome, VIC 1400/363.
within the lattice of black ink. All
the information is contained in the
plate, and the printers job was to let it shine. By contrast, plates by Filippo Palazzi, who represents Italys version of
the 19th century Etching Revival, reveal how much certain etchings of the later 19th century relied on plate tone,
retroussage and other interpretive printing techniques to fill out the tone and atmosphere only suggested by the rather
open web of etched marks. Palazzis La pastorella (1880) is a good example of a plate made in anticipation of such
printing. The skirt of the standing figure is barely articulated in relation to the upper body and legs. One can imagine
wiping the plate and leaving extra tone on the skirt to make it stand out against the extremely delicate marks describing
1
the distant hills and sky.
Looking from Palazzi to the masterpieces of Giorgio Morandi, it was clear that Morandis approach to plate making
harks back to the work of the earlier artists in the exhibition. Calculated spacing, layering and width of lines were the
secret to his carefully controlled range of values. Everything was etched in the plates, requiring a clean wipe for the
ideal impression. Morandi cherished the freshness of the lines made on the first ground and the unity results from a
plate placed in the acid bath just once. This relationship of graphic clarity to Morandis etching technique is most
striking in Paesaggio sul Savenna (1929) (Fig. 7). The acid cut extremely clean channels which all seem to go to the
same depth.

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Art in Print | Drawing and its Double: The Engraved Plate

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The final section of the exhibition, consisting of Italian prints from

1966 to 1988, revealed works that are almost unknown to American
viewers. The vigorous working of many of these plates through deep
biting, cutting, shaping and inlay brought to mind prints made under
the influence of Stanley William Hayter and Atelier 17 in France, the
United States and the UK, but the Italian prints are less reliant on
burin engraving for their technique or Surrealism for their imagery.
Aquisgrana (1971) by Nino Franchina consists of two interlocking
spiky forms made of welded steel. The matrix has remarkable
sculptural presence as does the plate for Guido Strazzas 1988
Studio relativa a Roma, which contrasts etched and drypointed lines
representing shadow and movement with solid planes created by
zinc inlay. Emphasising the sculptural qualities inherent in all intaglio
plates, these works brought the exhibition full circle by relating to
Ghisis shaped plates for the Last Judgment.
Drawing and its Double demonstrates how much can be learned by
looking at a matrix that cannot be learned by looking at a fine
impression of the plate. Recent art historical exploration of the matrix
includes Mei-Ying Sungs study, William Blake and the Art of
Engraving.

Sung examines all of Blakes extant plates (with special

Fig. 6. Giovanni Folo, preparatory drawing by Giovanni

Tognoli, Eracle e Lyca (post 1841), after Antonio Canova,
etching and burin on steelified copper, 63.1 x 47.6 cm.

attention to The Book of Job, 1826) looking at their backs for

Courtesy of Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, VIC
1287.
hammer marks that show where the front surface had to be made
flush after copper had been removed to make a correction.
Comparison with plates by Blakes contemporaries shows that Blake
corrected with great freedom, demonstrating an extraordinary creative flexibility within his exacting medium. The same
point could probably be made by examining a series of state proofs, but by going to the primary source, the objects
Blake saw as he was working, Sung makes a compelling argument that Blakes passion for the physical act of
engraving, the trade that he had learned as an apprentice and that supported him throughout his life, was equal to the
intensity he brought to his more celebrated work with experimental techniques.
From my point of view as a printmaker, it is very interesting to study a plate and observe the autographic qualities of
each engravers work. This individuality exists on an almost microscopic level involving relative evenness of spacing,
smoothness of lines and the commencement and termination of marks. Looking at a plate can help to distinguish
between engraving and etching, something that can be very confusing when looking at impressions of mixed method
prints. In examining engraved plates I try to determine the sequence of cuts in passages of layered hatching. It is often
possible to see where the engraver has re-entered a line with the burin because the groove appears somewhat rough
in the plate even when it prints as a smooth line on the paper. Exacting measurements can even determine the profile

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of a cut to find out whether the engraver used a

square or lozenge shaped burin.
If the opportunity to examine these plates was so
unusual for a seasoned practitioner, it must have
been extremely novel for the general public.
The images on most of the plates were not
obvious from a conventional viewing distance
and close looking was clearly required. I
observed visitors using the magnifiers provided
and quickly becoming engrossed in the details of
each artists handwork. Engravings by Andriot,
Volpato, Folo and Poretti dazzled the eye with
the superhuman precision and intricacy of their
marks. Even more compelling was the visceral
immediacy evoked by the etched lines in plates
by Piranesi, Carra, and the deeply-bitten
expressive gestures in plates of the 60s and 70s
by Afro Basaldella and Giulio Turcato.
The most profound question raised by Drawing
and its Double is whether a matrix is actually a
work of art and if so, what kind of work is it? In
addition to the historical material, the exhibition
also included Decalogo (2008) (Fig. 8) an

Fig. 7. Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta con vaso, lumino e piatto (verso) (1929),
etching and aquatint on copper, 24.9 x 25.8 cm. Courtesy of Istituto Nazionale per la
Grafica, Rome, VIC 1799/30r.

installation of ten large etched plates by Paolo Canevari, (commissioned by the Istituto and produced at the Calcografia
with the assistance of master printer Antonio Sannino), which supplies one answer to this question. Canevari etched
and drypointed highly charged imagesa skull, cross, the Collosseum, The Bible and Mein Kampf, most engulfed in
flamesonto ten large (almost 3 x 5 feet) polished copperplates. The plates received a reflective nickel plating and
were bent at the edges and mounted so they stood out from the wall. The incised lines, depicting whirls of smoke that
contrast with solid forms, are inked as for printing in order to make the images more visible. At the same time, viewers,
reflected in the plates, become part of the images as they look. Clearly, though they refer to prints through their
materials and technique, here the plates are the primary objects.
The historical plates have a more equivocal status. They are striking for their physical presence, their tactile, highly
wrought qualities as objects. Many of them are strongly sculptural and all of them have subtle qualities of relief. They
employ drawing skills in their making, but they are not quite the same as drawings. Their makers understood them as
three-dimensional utilitarian objects, manipulating both images and three-dimensionality in reverse in order to impress
images onto surfaces. If they are not quite drawings, it has to be said they are also not quite sculptures. Even though

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the makers may have spent months and even years working on the
metal, the primary object was always the graphic work on paper. For
the platemaker to lose sight of this goal would be disastrous, resulting in
a piece of decorated metalwork rather than a print.

Fig. 8. Paolo Canevari, Burning Skull (2008), from the

Matrices, and by extension the prints they produce, have a unique and
curious identity in relation to other classes of art objects. The matrix
and every print pulled from it constitute the entire work of art. This is
true even when they are permanently dispersed or some elements in
the series are lost. (Sculptor Jonathan Bonner touched on this idea in a
recent project in which he had a professional lettering specialist
engrave palindromes on copperplates. The plates were printed in an
edition of one and the plate and proof were framed together, uniting the
plate and the print as a single entity.) Every plate in the Drawing Center
exhibition is intimately linked to the impressions it has made, perhaps
occasionally numbering in the thousands, often over many centuries. It
was only after looking at the plates on view that I remembered not only
the Salvator Rosas at the RISD Museum, but also the many hundreds of
impressions I had seen from these matrices over the years in museums,
private collections and on the market. Being in the presence of the
plate, the site of production, made me powerfully aware of the point at
which each individual print started its path in the world.

Decalogo series, etched copper and dry-point, nickelplated, 138 x 88 x 2 cm. Courtesy of the artist and
Gallery Christian Stein, Milan.

1. James McNeill Whistler is a prime example of an artist who used selective wiping and plate tone to augment
effects suggested by the etched lines in his plates. The artist wiped many of the etchings in the Venice Set, first
exhibited in 1880, to leave thin layers of ink on parts of the non-image surface of the plate, emphasizing effects of
atmosphere and light. Professional printers in Europe and America picked up on these techniques during the final
quarter of the 19th century and well into the 20th, extensively employing retroussage which involves heating the
plate after it has been wiped and going over the lines with a rag to pull out some ink and soften the edges. E. S.
Lumsdens book, The Art of Etching, offers an excellent compendium of Etching Revival platemaking and printing
techniques.
2. Mei-Ying Sungs study, William Blake and the Art of Engraving. London: Pickering & Chatto Ltd, 2009

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