Mezzotint is a
monochrome printmaking process of the
intaglio family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like
hatching
Hatching () is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. When lines are placed at an angle to one another, it is called cross-hatching. Hatching is als ...
, cross-hatching or
stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonality by roughening a metal plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker". In printing, the tiny pits in the plate retain the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean. This technique can achieve a high level of quality and richness in the print, and produce a furniture print which is large and bold enough to be framed and hung effectively in a room.
Mezzotint is often combined with other intaglio techniques, usually
etching
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...
and
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...
, including
stipple engraving
Stipple engraving is a technique used to create tone in an Intaglio (printmaking), 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 ...
. The process was especially widely used in England from the eighteenth century, and in France was called ''la manière anglais'' (“the English manner”). Until the 20th century it has mostly been used for
reproductive prints to reproduce portraits and other paintings, rather than for original compositions. From the mid-18th century it was somewhat in competition with the other main tonal technique of the day,
aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used ...
.
Since the mid-nineteenth century it has been relatively little used, as
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...
and other techniques produced comparable results more easily.
Sir Frank Short (1857–1945) was an important pioneer of the mezzotint revival in the United Kingdom along with
Peter Ilsted (1864–1933) in Denmark.
Mezzotint is known for the luxurious quality of its tones: first, because an evenly, finely roughened surface holds a lot of ink, allowing deep solid colours to be printed; secondly because the process of smoothing the plate with
burin, burnisher and scraper allows fine gradations in tone to be developed. The scraper is a triangular ended tool, and the burnisher has a smooth round end – not unlike many spoon handles.
History

The mezzotint printmaking method was invented by the German soldier and amateur artist
Ludwig von Siegen (1609 – ). His earliest mezzotint print dates to 1642 and is a portrait of
Countess Amalie Elisabeth of Hanau-Münzenberg, regent for her son, and von Siegen's employer. This was made by working from light to dark. The rocker seems to have been invented by
Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 ( O.S.) 7 December 1619 (N.S.)– 29 November 1682 (O.S.) December 1682 (N.S) was an English-German army officer, admiral, scientist, and colonial governor. He first rose to ...
, a famous cavalry commander in the
English Civil War
The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
, who was the next to use the process, and took it to England.
Sir
Peter Lely
Sir Peter Lely (14 September 1618 – 30 November 1680) was a painter of Dutch origin whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. He became a naturalised British subject and was kn ...
saw the potential for using it to publicise his portraits, and encouraged a number of Dutch printmakers to come to England.
Godfrey Kneller
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723) was a German-born British painter. The leading Portrait painting, portraitist in England during the late Stuart period, Stuart and early Georgian eras ...
worked closely with
John Smith, who is said to have lived in his house for a period; he created about 500 mezzotints, some 300 copies of portrait paintings. In the next century over 400 mezzotints after portraits by Sir
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...
are known, by various hands.
British mezzotint collecting was a great craze from about 1760 to the
Great Crash of 1929, also spreading to America. The main area of collecting was British portraits; hit oil paintings from the
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sc ...
were routinely, and profitably, reproduced in mezzotint throughout this period, and other mezzotinters reproduced older portraits of historical figures, or if necessary, made them up. The favourite period to collect was roughly from 1750 to 1820, the great period of the British portrait. There were two basic styles of collection: some concentrated on making a complete collection of material within a certain scope, while others aimed at perfect condition and quality (which declines in mezzotints after a relatively small number of impressions are taken from a plate), and in collecting the many "
proof states" which artists and printers had obligingly provided for them from early on. Leading collectors included
William Eaton, 2nd Baron Cheylesmore and the Irishman
John Chaloner Smith.
In the first half of the 19th century the "mixed" technique was popular in England, with other intaglio techniques, often used to start a plate off, combined with mezzotint. Mezzotint was also often used for landscapes, being especially suited to rather gloomy British skies and twilights, that were popular subjects in the Victorian
Etching Revival.

Continental use of the technique was much less; in the late 17th century
Abraham Bloteling was one of a number of Amsterdam printmakers to use it, but in the 18th century only
Augsburg
Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...
(
Johann Jacob Haid and
Johann Elias Ridinger),
Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
and
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
(
Ignaz Unterberger) had schools, led by artists following London styles.
During the 20th century the technique went into decline, in great part because it was so time consuming to rock the plates. Rare proponents include
Yozo Hamaguchi,
Leonard Marchant and
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as ''Oklahoma! (film), Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel (fi ...
. Wider interest in learning and using the technique revived after the publication in 1990 of the book ''The Mezzotint: History and Technique'' by artist
Carol Wax. The Wax book was responsible for a substantial upsurge in the number of artists creating mezzotints in the United States and worldwide.
Light to dark method
The first mezzotints by
Ludwig von Siegen were made using the light to dark method. The metal plate was tooled to create indentations and parts of the image that were to stay light in tone were kept smooth. This method was referred to as the 'Additive method'; that is, adding areas of indentations to the plate for the areas of the print that were to appear darker in tone. This technique meant that it was possible to create the image directly by only roughening a blank plate selectively, where the darker parts of the image are to be. By varying the degree of smoothing, mid-tones between black and white can be created, hence the name ''mezzo-tinto'' which is
Italian for "
half-tone" or "half-painted".
Dark to light method
This became the most common method. The whole surface (usually) of a
metal
A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...
, usually copper, plate is roughened evenly, manually with a rocker, or mechanically. If the plate were printed at this point it would show as solid black. The image is then created by selectively burnishing areas of the surface of the metal plate with metal tools; the smoothed parts will print lighter than those areas not smoothed by the burnishing tool. Areas smoothed completely flat will not hold ink at all; such areas will print "white," that is, the colour of the paper without ink. This is called working from "dark to light", or the "subtractive" method. It was first used by
Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 ( O.S.) 7 December 1619 (N.S.)– 29 November 1682 (O.S.) December 1682 (N.S) was an English-German army officer, admiral, scientist, and colonial governor. He first rose to ...
. The all-over roughening does not require huge skill, and was normally done by an apprentice.

Two great advantages of the technique were that it was easier to learn and also much faster than
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...
proper, as well as giving a rich range of tones. Mezzotints could be produced very quickly to respond to or depict events or people in the news, and larger sizes of print were relatively easy to produce. This was crucial for what was known at the time as the furniture print, a mezzotint that was large enough and with sufficiently bold tonal contrasts to hold its own framed and hung on the wall of a room. Since mezzotints were far cheaper than paintings, this was a great attraction.
Colour
Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667-1741) used the dark to light method and invented the three and four-colour mezzotint printing technique by using a separate metal plate for each colour. Le Blon's colour printing method applied the RYB colour model approach whereby red, yellow and blue were used to create a larger range of colour shades. In ''Coloritto'', his book of 1725, Le Blon refers to red, yellow and blue as "primitive" colours and that red and yellow make orange; red and blue, make purple/violet; and blue and yellow make green (Le Blon, 1725, p. 6). A similar process was used in France later in the century by Le Blon's pupil
Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty and his sons; their work included anatomical illustrations for medical books. Other black and white prints were hand-coloured in
watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...
, which was especially useful after the plate became worn.
Printing
Printing the finished plate is the same for either method, and follows
the normal way for an intaglio plate; the whole surface is inked, the ink is then wiped off the surface to leave ink only in the pits of the still rough areas below the original surface of the plate. The plate is put through a high-pressure printing press next to a sheet of paper, and the process repeated.

Because the pits in the plate are not deep, only a small number of top-quality impressions (copies) can be printed before the quality of the tone starts to degrade as the pressure of the press begins to smooth them out. Perhaps only one or two hundred really good impressions can be taken, although plates were often "refreshed" by further rocker work. In 1832 a writer in ''Arnold's Library'' noted:
...the uncertainty as to the number of impressions this kind of engraving will afford—some plates failing after fifty or even a less number are printed; from two to three hundred are the most that can be taken off, and then it is often necessary to refresh the ground and restore the lights during the progress of the printing."
However, if performed by the printer or the artist's apprentice, refreshing the plate was often done to a lower standard.
Bamber Gascoigne
Arthur Bamber Gascoigne (, 24 January 1935 – 8 February 2022) was an English television presenter and author. He was the original quizmaster of '' University Challenge'', which initially ran from 1962 to 1987.
Early life and education
Gasc ...
said of an example he illustrated with before and after details "the dark tones have been clumsily renewed with the roulette; the result is brutal in close-up but will seem adequate when the whole print is viewed at a normal distance".
Standard sizes used in England were known× as "royal", 24 × 19 in., "large", 18 × 24 in., "posture", 14 × 10 in., and "small", 6 × 4 in, and ready-made frames and albums could be bought to fit these.
Detailed technique
Plates can be mechanically roughened; one way is to rub fine metal filings over the surface with a piece of glass; the finer the filings, the smaller the grain of the surface. Special roughening tools called 'rockers' have been in use since at least the eighteenth century. The method commonly in use today is to use a steel rocker approximately five inches wide, which has between 45 and 120 teeth per inch on the face of a blade in the shape of a shallow arc, with a wooden handle projecting upwards in a T-shape. Rocked steadily from side to side at the correct angle, the rocker will proceed forward creating burrs in the surface of the
copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
. The plate is then moved – either rotated by a set number of degrees or through 90 degrees according to preference – and then rocked in another pass. This is repeated until the plate is roughened evenly and will print a completely solid tone of black.
File:Mezzotint tools 1986.jpg, A mezzotint of mezzotint tools. Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as ''Oklahoma! (film), Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel (fi ...
, ''A Dark Side of the Sun'' (1986)
File:Mezzaluna berceau.jpg, Two sizes of rocker
File:Mezzotintoführung.jpg, Using the rocker
File:Muscles of the sole of the foot. Colour mezzotint by A. E. G Wellcome V0007806.jpg, Muscles of the sole of the foot, Colour mezzotint by A.E. Gautier d'Agoty (son of Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty), 1773
File:Peter Ilsted - Sunshine Falling on a Door.jpg, ''Sunshine V'', Peter Ilsted
Mezzotint engravers by date of birth
*
Ludwig von Siegen – inventor
*
Prince Rupert of the Rhine
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, (17 December 1619 ( O.S.) 7 December 1619 (N.S.)– 29 November 1682 (O.S.) December 1682 (N.S) was an English-German army officer, admiral, scientist, and colonial governor. He first rose to ...
*
Wallerant Vaillant (1623–1677, the first professional mezzotinter)
*
John Smith (c. 1652 – c. 1742)
*
Jan van der Vaart (c. 1650 – 1727, Dutchman working in England)
*
Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667–1741, German, developed colour printing, using different plates)
*
Bernhard Vogel (1683–1737)
*
George White (c. 1684 – 1732)
*
Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty (1716–1785, French, developed a four-colour mezzotint process)
*
Richard Houston (1721?–1775)
*
James MacArdell (1729?–1765, Irish)
*
Edward Fisher (1730?–1785?, Irish)
*
Johann Jacob Ridinger (1736–1784), youngest son of
Johann Elias Ridinger, who also worked in mezzotint
*
David Martin (1737–1797, Scottish)
*
William Pether (c. 1738–1821)
*
Valentine Green (1739–1813)
*
John Dixon (about 1740–1811)
*
Richard Earlom (1743–1822)
*
William Dickinson (1746–1823)
*
John Raphael Smith (1751–1812)
*
John Jones (c. 1755–1797)
*
Joseph Grozer (1755–1799)
*
John Young (1755–1825)
*
William Doughty (1757–1782)
*
James Walker (c. 1760 – c. 1823, British, moved to Russia)
*
Charles Howard Hodges
Charles Howard Hodges (1764 in Portsmouth – 24 July 1837 in Amsterdam), was a British painter active in the Netherlands during the French occupation of the 18th and early 19th century.
Biography
Hodges was a pupil of John Raphael Smith and had ...
(1764–1837, English, moved to Amsterdam)
*
William Say (1764–1834)
*
Charles Turner (1774–1857)
*
John Martin (1789–1854)
*
James Bromley (1800–1838)
*
John Sartain
John Sartain (October 24, 1808 – October 25, 1897) was an English-born American artist who pioneered mezzotint engraving in the United States.
Biography
John Sartain was born in London, England. He learned line engraving, and produced several o ...
(1808–1897, English pioneer of the technique in America)
*
Alexander Hay Ritchie
Alexander Hay Ritchie (January 21, 1822 – September 19, 1895) was a Scottish-born American artist and engraver. He was born in Glasgow, and studied under Sir William Allan before moving to New York City in 1841. He specialised in mezzotints. ...
(1822–1895, Scottish, moved to US)
*
Richard Josey (1840–1906), engraver of
James McNeill Whistler's ''
Whistler's Mother
''Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1'', best known under its colloquial name ''Whistler's Mother'' or ''Portrait of Artist's Mother'', is a painting in oils on canvas created by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. The sub ...
''
*
Sir Frank Short (1857–1945)
*
Peter Ilsted (1861–1933, Danish)
*
T. F. Simon (1877–1942)
*
M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; ; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made woodcuts, lithography, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were Mathematics and art, inspired by mathematics.
Despite wide popular int ...
(1898–1972)
*
Lynd Ward (1905-1985)
*
Yozo Hamaguchi (1909–2000)
* Mario Avati (1921–2009)
*
Leonard Marchant (1929–2000)
*
Robert Kipniss (b. 1931)
*
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as ''Oklahoma! (film), Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel (fi ...
(b. 1934)
*
Toru Iwaya (b. 1936)
*
Vija Celmins (b. 1938)
* Holly Downing (b. 1948)
*
Carol Wax (b. 1953)
Citations
General and cited references
*
* Barker, Elizabeth E. . “The Printed Image in the West: Mezzotint”, 2003, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
online
*
D'Oench, Ellen Gates, ''Copper into Gold: Prints by
John Raphael Smith'', 1999,
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
,
*
Gascoigne, Bamber. ''How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet'', 1986 (2nd Edition, 2004), Thames & Hudson,
*
Griffiths, Antony, ed. (1996a), ''Landmarks in Print Collecting: Connoisseurs and Donors at the British Museum since 1753'', 1996, British Museum Press,
*
Griffiths, Antony (1996b), ''Prints and Printmaking: an Introduction to the History and Techniques'', 2nd ed., British Museum Press,
83 US edition online*
Mayor, Hyatt A., ''Prints and People'', Metropolitan Museum of Art/Princeton, 1971, no page numbers, by illustration
online as PDF
* This includes a detailed description of mezzotint history and methods.
Further reading
Jones, Shirley (2019). ''Mezzotint and the Artist's Book: a forty year journey'' (The Red Hen Press)National Portrait Gallery, London: The early history of mezzotint and the prints of Richard Tompson and Alexander Browne*
External links
Mezzotintwith Guy Langevin, at
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
Mezzotintwith Rita Vandevorst, at Vimeo
* Mezzotint / Art of Darkness, An exhibition of classical and contemporary mezzotints curated by Carol Wax and Earl Retif at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Illustrated with 58 artist biographies
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Artistic techniques
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