<P> Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, flat surface, by cutting grooves into it . The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold or steel are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper, which are called engravings . Engraving was a historically important method of producing images on paper, both in artistic printmaking, and also for commercial reproductions and illustrations for books and magazines . It has long been replaced by photography in its commercial applications and, partly because of the difficulty of learning the technique, is much less common in printmaking, where it has been largely replaced by etching and other techniques . Other terms often used for engravings are copper - plate engraving and Line engraving . These should all mean exactly the same, but especially in the past were often used very loosely to cover several printmaking techniques, so that many so - called engravings were in fact produced by totally different techniques, such as etching . </P> <P> In antiquity, the only engraving that could be carried out is evident in the shallow grooves found in some jewellery after the beginning of the 1st Millennium B.C. The majority of so - called engraved designs on ancient gold rings or other items were produced by chasing or sometimes a combination of lost - wax casting and chasing . </P> <P> In the European Middle Ages goldsmiths used engraving to decorate and inscribe metalwork . It is thought that they began to print impressions of their designs to record them . From this grew the engraving of copper printing plates to produce artistic images on paper, known as old master prints in Germany in the 1430s . Italy soon followed . Many early engravers came from a goldsmithing background . The first and greatest period of the engraving was from about 1470 to 1530, with such masters as Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, and Lucas van Leiden . </P> <P> Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal (the original process--in modern manufacturing other chemicals may be used on other types of material). As an intaglio method of printmaking it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains widely used today . </P>

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