Book Description

Excerpt from American Engravers Upon Copper and Steel General interest in the history, development, and study of American engraving seems to increase as we recede from the period when this art was practised, and approach the present age of reproduction by mechanical and photographic processes. Even the growing scarcity of the prints and their greatly increased cost do not seem to have deterred the collectors, but have rather added to their interest. In early American portraits, the hardness and crudity of our pioneer engravers are most apparent, and there is an absence of the grace and elegance about their work which characterized the Eighteenth Century engravers of Europe. To the collector, however, these possess a distinct historical value which is often lacking in the more finished and artistic productions, their very crudity of design and execution seeming to create a certain fascination which even their grotesqueness fails to dispel. Until the publication of the work on "American Engravers" by the late David McN. Stauffer, published by the Grolier Club of New York, in 1907, nothing in the nature of a comprehensive study of the work of American engravers, or a list of their prints, existed; the earlier book on the subject by William S. Baker, being only a collection of notes for future reference, and not a complete review of the subject. Mr. Stauffer's book was, therefore, virtually, a pioneer work in which he had endeavored to cover the field as completely as possible, and no praise is too great for the enthusiastic and painstaking manner in which he entered upon his task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.