Engraving is the practice of incising a design on 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 intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing images on paper as prints or illustrations; these images are also called "engravings". Engraving is one of the oldest and most important techniques in printmaking. Wood engravings, a form of relief printing and stone engravings, such as petroglyphs, are not covered in this article.
Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularizing the "crayon" method of engraving.
Victor David Brenner was a Lithuanian sculptor, engraver and medalist known primarily as the designer of the United States Lincoln cent.
Jacopo Caraglio, Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio or Gian Giacomo Caraglio known also as Jacobus Parmensis and Jacobus Veronensis was an Italian engraver, goldsmith and medallist, born at Verona or Parma. His career falls easily into two rather different halves: he worked in Rome from 1526 or earlier as an engraver in collaboration with leading artists, and then in Venice, before moving to spend the rest of his life as a court goldsmith in Poland, where he died.
A plaquette is a small low relief sculpture in bronze or other materials. These were popular in the Italian Renaissance and later. They may be commemorative, but especially in the Renaissance and Mannerist periods were often made for purely decorative purposes, with often crowded scenes from religious, historical or mythological sources. Only one side is decorated, giving the main point of distinction with the artistic medal, where both sides are normally decorated. They can usually be held within a hand. At the smaller end they overlap with medals, and at the larger they begin to be called plaques. They have always been closely related to the medal, and many awards today are in the form of plaquettes, but plaquettes were less restricted in their subject-matter than the medal, and allowed the artist more freedom.
Bonifacio Bembo, also called Bonfazio Bembo, or simply just Bembo, was a north Italian Renaissance artist born in Brescia in 1420. He was the son of Giovanni Bembo, an active painter during his time. As a painter, Bonifacio mainly worked in Cremona. He was patronized by the Sforza family and was commissioned to paint portraits of Francesco Sforza and his wife Bianca Maria Visconti. Scholars have credited him as the artist who produced a tarot card deck for the Visconti-Sforza families, now held in the Cary Collection of Playing Cards at Yale University. In the past century, art historians have begun to question the authenticity of his works, believing his only two secure works to be the portraits of Francesco and Bianca Maria Sforza. He is believed to have died sometime before 1482.
Sebastiano Bombelli was an Italian painter, mainly active in Venice, during the Baroque period.
Mario Balassi (1604–1667) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Florence and Rome.
Filippo Abbiati (1640–1715) was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period, active in Lombardy and Turin, together with Andrea Lanzani and Stefano Maria Legnani, he was a prominent mannerist painters from the School of Lombardy. Born in Milan, he was a pupil of the painter Antonio Busca. Alessandro Magnasco was one of his pupils along with Pietro Maggi and Giuseppe Rivola. Ticozzi claims he trained, along with Federigo Bianchi, with Carlo Francesco Nuvolone. Along with Bianchi, he painted the cupola of Sant'Alessandro Martire in Milan. Abbiati also painted a St. John preaching in the Wilderness for a church in Saronno.
Tommaso Aldrovandini was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He mainly painted perspective views and architectural subjects (quadratura), in which the figures were painted by Marcantonio Franceschini and Carlo Cignani. He decorated churches, palaces, and theaters in Forlì, Verona, Venice, Parma, Turin, Ferrara, and Genoa, and especially in his native Bologna. Among his pupils was Giovanni Benedetto Paolazzi.
William Lodge was an English engraver and printmaker of the Baroque period.
Jacopo Bertucci was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period. He is also known as Jacopone da Faenza. He was born in Faenza, and worked under Raphael in Rome. One of his pupils was Taddeo Zuccari. He was active c. 1530 and painted in the manner of Raphael. He painted for the church of San Vitale at Ravenna.
Charles Christian Reisen was an English gem-engraver.
Giovanni Bernardi, also known as Giovanni da Castel Bolognese and as Giovanni da Castelbolognese, was an Italian gem engraver and medallist who was born in Castel Bolognese, Italy. He was the son of a goldsmith and by 1530 had moved to Rome, where he had a position in the Papal mint, which also allowed him time to work for other patrons. These included Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici (1511–35), Pope Clement VII (1523–34), Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III, as well as his grandson, also called Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. He was "a skillful composer of elegant nudes in elaborate scenes".
Matteo dal Nasaro Veronese, also known as Matteo dal Nasaro of Verona, was an Italian sculptor.
Martino Rota, also Martin Rota and Martin Rota Kolunić was an artist, now mainly known for his printmaking, from Dalmatia.
An engraved gem, frequently referred to as an intaglio, is a small and usually semi-precious gemstone that has been carved, in the Western tradition normally with images or inscriptions only on one face. The engraving of gemstones was a major luxury art form in the ancient world, and an important one in some later periods.
Hardstone carving, in art history and archaeology, is the artistic carving of semi-precious stones, such as jade, rock crystal, agate, onyx, jasper, serpentinite, or carnelian, and for objects made in this way. Normally the objects are small, and the category overlaps with both jewellery and sculpture. Hardstone carving is sometimes referred to by the Italian term pietre dure; however, pietra dura is the common term used for stone inlay work, which causes some confusion.
The Lothair Crystal is an engraved gem from Lotharingia in northwest Europe, showing scenes of the biblical story of Susanna, dating from 855–869. The Lothair Crystal is an object in the collection of the British Museum.
Pasquale Cati was an Italian Mannerist painter active mostly in Rome.
