PHOTO-GALYANOGRAPHIC ENGRAVING.
We have received from Mr. Lake Price, the gentleman so well known for his Venetian water-colours and now for his mediteval and other pic- turesque photographic groups, a specimen of the new process of rho- to-galvanography, for which a patent has been taken out and a company established. The specimen before us is Don Quixote in his Study, musing with wide eyes over the chivalric wonders of his darling authors. As a photograph, it may be called perfect ; as an example of the sometimes artificial groupings with which Mr. Price's name is associated, capitally combined and composed ; and as an engraving, truly wonderful for mi- nuteness, finish, and effect. It is, in fact, photography facsimiled in engraving,—a result hitherto beyond the reach of art.
Finished plates are produced by photo-galvanogmphy in a few weeks. I "In the primary steps," as a prospectus explains, "the operator coats a glass plate with a gelatinous solution, suitably prepared with chemical ingredients sensitive to light : the plate so coated is exposed to the light in contact with the print or drawing to be copied. This relievo plate is then moulded, and the mould placed in the electrotype battery, producing a thin raised copper plate called-the matrix, which serves for obtaining finally by electrotype the intaglio printing-plate." The impressions are struck off with ordinary printer's ink. To perfect sharpness and precision of single lineS and contours, photo-galvanography adds shadows broad and united in the darks like the wash of mezzotint, —minutely dotted, with almost the same eject of a wash, in the middle tints.
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