The basic process of engraving involves a burin, a small bevelled diamond-shaped metal tool to carve lines into a piece of metal, usually copper or zinc. In Adam and Eve (1504), the great Albrecht DГјrer (1471-1528) achieved a mindboggling density of fine lines, his work a stunning blend of form, shading, and texture. 1480-1534) successfully transposed the painter RaphaelвЂ™s The Judgment of Paris (1510-20) into an engraving through his complex hatching system, creating smooth, round tones throughout the image. 1494-1533) achieved dimensional depth in his engravings by putting less pressure on the burin while carving the background. As the method engraving progressed throughout the 16th and 17th century, artists added their own innovations and developed their own unique styles. In Italy, Florentine goldsmiths filled incisions in niello plaques of silver or gold with a dark substance to shade a design, thus serving as a precursor to engraving. The German Martin Schongauer (c.1450-1491) was the son of a goldsmith, and his work in the 1470s such as The Death of the Virgin laid the foundations for engraving as an art form. The art of engraving appears to have originated from goldsmithing techniques. Marcantonio Raimondi, after Rapael, The Judgement of Paris, (1510-20), engraving. While deceptively alike to the untrained eye, both in name and look, these two methods developed from different processes, were mastered by differing artists, and create dissimilar effects on the finished print. Studying the art of printmaking, it is necessary to grasp the difference between engraving and etching, two techniques of intaglio printing.

This term encompasses a variety of print-making methods in which an image is created as incised sunken lines on a printing plate, rather than as raised ones. Intaglio printing is the opposite of relief printing.

Intaglio press