Page:A History of Wood-Engraving.djvu/24

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A HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING

in relief; they were taken off in a pale, brownish ink by rubbing on the back of the paper with a burnisher, and sometimes in black ink and with a press; they were then colored, either by hand or by means of a stencil plate, in

Fig 2.—St. Christopher, 1423. From Ottley's "Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving upon Copper and in Wood."

order to make them more attractive to the people. The earliest of these prints which bears an unquestionable date is the famous St. Christopher (Fig. 2) of 1423, found by