Cerography or glyphography is a printmaking technique related to

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

, using a layer of wax over a metal substrate. After the image is engraved into the wax, a positive plate is produced through

stereotyping In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

or electrotyping. This plate can be used with conventional

letterpress Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker com ...

equipment. The word is derived from the Greek grc, κηρός, wax, and grc, γράφειν, to write). Cerography was invented in the late 1830s by Sidney E. Morse, a son of

Jedidiah Morse Jedidiah Morse (August 23, 1761June 9, 1826) was a geographer whose textbooks became a staple for students in the United States. He was the father of the telegraphy pioneer and painter Samuel Morse, and his textbooks earned him the sobriquet of "f ...

, and a younger brother of

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...

; it was independently patented in England by Edward Palmer, who primarily conceived of it as an artistic medium. Its primary use, however, was for line drawings, and in particular maps. It was easier than copperplate engraving and allowed lines and printed text to be combined easily in a single plate (the text could simply be stamped into the wax). It also allowed for color illustration. As compared to

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the 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 the German a ...

and copperplate it had the disadvantage that it could not reproduce fine shading well. Tones were added by scoring fine parallel lines 100-150 per inch or by rolling stippling spikes over the surface of the wax to create parallel dotted lines. The technique remained popular to the end of the 19th century but was gradually pushed out by

photoengraving Photoengraving is a process that uses a light-sensitive photoresist applied to the surface to be engraved to create a mask that protects some areas during a subsequent operation which etches, dissolves, or otherwise removes some or all of the mat ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cerography Engraving Artistic techniques

See also

References