Q U I C K L I N K S

To learn more about the engraver of the 17th-century head-piece pictured to the left, see the IN BRIEF biography for Wenceslaus Hollar.

“The characteristic of mezzotinto is softness, which adapts it chiefly to portrait or history, with a few figures; and these not too small. Nothing except paint can express flesh more naturally, or the flowing of hair, or the folds of drapery, or the catching lights of armour.”
To view the mezzotint portrait, by John Simon, of “Thomas Britton the famous Musical Smal-coale Man,” see his IN BRIEF biography.

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IN BRIEF > Topics > the history of mezzotint engraving in Britain, where “it has been chiefly cultivated, and received its highest improvements”; as such, “Baron Heineken has not scrupled to give it the denomination of the English manner, by way of excellence”

First Published: August 2014
Revised (substantive): 30 June 2021

Under Construction

S O R R Y, but this page — on mezzotint engraving and its English improvers, including Prince Rupert (“who certainly introduced it into England, [and] gave it the name of mezzotinto”) and Sir Christopher Wren (identified in Royal Society of London records as the engraver of two “very curious and early” mezzotints of persons of color, Bust of a Negro Boy and Head of a Moor) — is still under construction.

printer's decorative block

^ 17th-century head-piece, showing six boys with farm tools, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677).

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that you will return to check on its progress another time.

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