1119
scribed his process as follow: “The value of our process
of photogravure consists in the possibility of obtaining,
by means of light, an etched copper-plate exactly like
the ordinary copper-plate, and giving all the gradations
of tone and half-tone, as drawn by nature in the ordinary
photograph. Our process is founded on the discovery of
a chemical substance which crystallizes under the infl u-
ence of light, the crystals becoming larger the longer
they are exposed to it. After exposure it only remains
to make a deposit of copper, by means of the electric
battery, on the crystalline surface, and thus a plate is
obtained yielding proofs in which every detail and
gradation of tone is faithfully reproduced.”
Walter B. Woodbury, the inventor of the woodbury-
type, asserted that the Goupil process was based on a
suggestion made by him to Goupil around 1870. Accord-
ing to Donald Cameron Swan, the process was based on
his father’s (Swan’s) photo-mezzotint process.
Goupil and its successor, Boussod, Valadon, & Cie,
used the process extensively for art reproduction, less
frequently for printing original photographs. The overall
excellence of a Goupil gravure –the density of black,
the separation of tones, and the clear, crisp quality of
the image– was not surpassed until the introduction of
the Rembrandt photogravure process in 1894. Goupil
gravures appeared in Seeley and Co.’s monthly art pe-
riodical The Portfolio.
Luxotype
A half-tone process patented in 1883 by Brown, Barnes
and Bell, a Liverpool fi rm of photographers. A photo-
graphic print was pressed against a metal plate engraved
with a stipple in relief, and thus became embossed with
a stipple. It was then strongly lighted from one side so
that the stipple could be photographed, and a negative
suitable for making a half-tone block was thus obtained.
A modifi cation of the process was to rub a pigment into
the depressed parts of the embossed surface of the print,
so that it could be copied by direct lighting. Specimens
can be seen in Photographic News, vol. 27, 1883.
Photoxylography
Name given to early photoengraving processes (from
the early1850s on) that used the production of a pho-
tographic image on boxwood blocks as a guide for the
engraver’s knife, instead of using an image drawn by
hand on the wood block. According to Stannard (Art Ex-
emplar, 1859) the number of the Microscopic Journal for
June, 1853, was the fi rst and a thoroughly successful op-
eration on an extended scale of this beautiful invention.
Photoxylography was used by the Illustrated London
News from 29 Dec. 1860. Pannemaker and his students
are mentioned as the best practitioners of this art.
These techniques, in capable hands, gave beautiful
results, but were inferior to true continuous-tone pro-
cesses like collotype and aquatint photogravure, and the
introduction of the half-tone process of the early 1880s
made their practice largely obsolete.Photozincography
A photolithographic process worked out by Col. Sir
Henry James at the Ordnance Survey Offi ce in South-
ampton, England, and at fi rst, starting in 1859, simply
a method of preparing a photo-lithographic transfer
and applying it to a zinc plate, afterwards printed from.
Direct prints from negatives were then made on the
zinc plates. Photozincography may refer to a line or
half-tone process.
Sir H. James read a paper to the British Associa-
tion “On photozincography,” in Sept. 1861. His fi rst
successful photozincograph was a reproduction of an
etching, in 1859. A facsimile of the Domesday book,
or ancient record of the Survey of English lands,
ordered in 1086 by William the Conqueror, followed
later in 1859.
Luis Nadeau
See also: Collotype; Half-tone Printing;
Heliogravure; and Woodburytype, Woodburygravure.Further Reading
Devincenzi, Giuseppe: Procédé de gravure électrochimique,
Paris: Imprimerie de Mallet-Bachelier, 1855.
Baroux, Eugène: Application de la photographie à la gravure
sur bois, Paris: chez l’auteur, 1863.
Fleck, Kaspar: Die Photo-Xylographie; Herstellung von Bildern
auf Buchsbaumholz für die Zwecke der Holzschneidekunst, mit
5 Abbildungen. Vienna and Leipzig: A. Hartleben, 1911.
Gervais, Thierry: D’après photographie. Premiers usages de la
photographie dans le journal L’Illustration. (1848–1859).
Paris, graduate thesis (EHESS), 2003.
Grupe, E.Y.: Instruction in the Art of Photographing on wood:
Complete Formulas and Process for Block Printing for
Engravers’ Use. Leominster, Mass., F.N. Boutwell, printer
[ca. 1882].
Lainer, Alexander: Anleitung zur Ausübung der Photoxylogra-
phie. Halle, Knapp, 1894
Nadeau, Luis, Encyclopedia of Printing, Photographic and Pho-
tomechanical Processes, , Vol. 1 & 2, Fredericton (Canada):
Atelier Luis Nadeau, 1989–1990.
Scott, Captain A. de C., On Photozincography and Other Photo-
graphic Processes Employed at the Ordnance Survey Offi ce,
Southampton. London: Longman & Co., 1862.
Smillie, Thomas W., Photographing on wood for engraving. (In
Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian miscellaneous collec-
tions. Washington, 1905. Vol. XLVII (Quarterly Issue, Vol.
II) pp. 497–499) Publication 1568.
Stannard, William John: The Art-Exemplar. A Guide to Distinguish
One Species of Print From Another with Pictorial Examples
and Written Descriptions of Every Known Style of Illustration...
Written and Compiled by S[Stannard]. N.d., 1859.