Question: About engraving for printing.

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Yesterday my dad came up with this one he found in his archives, yes I know it is religious and I’m allergic on that. But it is interesting to see.
It is a what we call a " prayers card" you still get at a funeral.
This one is from the year 1845.
I used my x10 loupe to explore it.
When you click on each image, it will show up big size

real size is 75mm x115mm

I do know this is an engraving for printing. It was mostly done by hand pushing on copperplate. The small lettering under “Maria, you can see the 3 lines for the size of the capital and regular lettering. It is real small, and probably done without the use of a microscope.

About the question I have and curious.

The outer black scroll design versus the inner scroll, to me it seems the black part is printed different than the white scroll part.
I would think that a engraved copperplate could be print showing positive or negative space in the colour black.

I think on the black outside, the surface was covered with ink and then printed, while on the lighter part, the cuts were filled with ink and then printed.
Si I would like to know if that is right, and perhaps there are still some here in the café who did this kind of engraving.

Now, if this was printed in at least two steps, how did they line up these two copperplates so precisely?

Don’t forget to click the images to see them HD, or safe on your HD to open in PS

arnaud

 

[Doc Mark]

Arnaud, the first plate was definitely printed twice. If you look at the writing below the Madonna figure and the lower right corner of the Madonna itself, you will see that there is an overlapping of the two prints. I believe the dark outer printing was done by lithography and the detailed figure was copperplate engraving. They probably use the border decoration for lots of cards but changed the inner figure to go with a customer's preference.

 

[Keith]

When you do printing with 2 plates the first plate is printed on the paper prayer card and probably put in box until needed. The second plate is put in the press and an image is printed on a backing paper that is in the press.
Small guide pins that are adjustable are inserted to the backing paper making it easy to align and adjust where the second image is to be printed on the prayer card.
The same technique is used for 2 color jobs.
The image below would be the prayer card in the press and it can be adjusted for alignment by moving the 3 metal pins that are in the paper.

 

[Arnaud Van Tilburgh]

Thanks Doc and Keith, yes that does answer all my questions. I forgot about the lithography technique too.

arnaud