The Renaissance Engraver at Work

The Cleveland Museum of Art holds some of the world’s rarest and earliest examples of engraving, a uniquely beautiful and intricate printmaking technique. This summer, many are on view as part of the exhibition The Renaissance Engraver at Work. Among the first forms of “mass media” in Europe, engraving emerged when paper became readily available during the 1400s. Tools long used to incise detailed designs into metal objects, such as armor or jewelry, were used to create images on copper plates, which were then inked and printed onto paper. The rapid adoption of engraving in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy by the 16th century enabled artistic compositions to be distributed widely across Europe and beyond. 

The first 50 years of engraving in Europe—roughly between 1450 and 1500—remain only partially understood. Scholars and curators do not know with certainty what tools early engravers used to cut their plates, how they prepared their plates and inks, or even, in some cases, precisely how they printed their engravings. Some of the answers to these questions are found in the engravings themselves; engraved lines exhibit qualities unique to each work that derive from the tools, ink, and paper employed. 

To better understand the early engravings on display from the museum’s collection, paper conservator Moyna Stanton and curator Emily Peters invited Andrew Raftery, a master engraver and printmaking professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, to come to the museum in January 2026. His visit was made possible with support from Cathy Lincoln. Raftery brings extensive, hands-on knowledge of the engraving and printing process along with deep insight into historical materials and techniques gained through sustained materials-based, practical experience. Together, the team examined engravings with the paper lab’s stereo microscope and a variety of light sources and magnification, revealing material and technical details not visible to the naked eye. 

For example, magnification of one of the CMA’s earliest engravings, Madonna Enthroned with Eight Angels, by Master ES, confirmed the engraver used goldsmiths’ tools, a correlation that is often assumed to exist in early engraving practice but is difficult to verify. Master ES applied a hollow, circular punch (a steel tool struck with a hammer)—of the type goldsmiths used to decorate armor—to form small circles on the hem of Virgin Mary’s mantle and to articulate the brocaded textile in the background. The engraver also incised lines with two different chisels (called burins)—broad and thin—to distinguish the figures’ contour lines from their shading. This idiosyncratic technique merits documentation, especially because starting around 1500, engravers across Europe refined their practice, using fewer tools to achieve more uniform line widths and depths. 

 After 1500, most engravers adopted systematic patterns of crossed and parallel lines to create visual effects. Study of the Venetian engraver Giulio Campagnola’s Venus Reclining in a Landscape revealed an entirely different approach to making the image. Rather than using a burin to engrave lines, Campagnola used the tool to make thousands of small, soft-edged dots—called stipples—across the surface of the plate. These dot patterns produce deeply shadowed areas and subtle transitions from dark to light. With this overall “fuzzy” effect, Campagnola may have sought to emulate the atmospheric qualities of Venetian painting of the period. 

Campagnola’s use of grayish-brown ink, rather than black, contributes to the soft appearance of the image. Inks were formulated in various ways during the early history of engraving. A Venetian document from the period describes printing ink made from the rinds of edible pumpkins, which could explain the grayish-brown tonality. Later, and elsewhere, inks were produced with more carbon-rich (thus blacker) substances such as soot and bone.

Close examination provides insight into the challenges artists faced in adopting a new technology and the ingenuity with which they responded. Some innovations, such as lines crossed to create shadow, were widely embraced and remained central to engraving practice for centuries. Others, such as Campagnola’s painstaking stippling technique, never gained widespread use—perhaps because of the subtle interpretation required. The Renaissance Engraver at Work traces these moments of experimentation, refinement, and ambition. This summer, encounter firsthand the beauty and astonishing optical effects that shaped the early history of engraving, one of Europe’s most significant and enduring image-making technologies.