Treatise on Engraving and Etching

In 1645 French artist and printmaker, Abraham Bosse wrote, illustrated and published in Paris the first treatise on engraving and etching techniques: Tract� des manieres de graver en taille douce sur l’airin. Later it went through many reprintings and translated editions in the decades and centuries to come. Although Bosse favoured the esthetic of the engraving, the technique of etching as he treats is basically that employed by Rembrandt, the greatest master of etching.

The present illustration is from a Dutch edition of 1662. which copied the illustrations from Bosse’s. It shows the thinner needles, with sharp points, and the broader ones below, with the whetting stone for shaping the points. The brush is for keeping the etching ground clean once it has been applied to the plate.