1889 engraved resin Harpers woodcut

[khkco4bls]

Here is my orig. harpers of yours. Also my resin piece. Even though there copies i think there great.

[D. Bergin]

Whoever colored that top piece did a great job. It has almost a 3D look to it.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Whoever colored that top piece did a great job. It has almost a 3D look to it.

My scans are actually misleading. By definition, this really is 3-D, but it's 3-D like a printer's block would be - depth so that ink is set on the paper in the appropriate amounts.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by khkco4bls

Here is my orig. harpers of yours. Also my resin piece. Even though there copies i think there great.

I think your colored piece was created using a different process from mine. I've seen two like yours - it's a smooth resin or plastic with the description below it, right?

[william_9]

My guess would be that the top image is laser etched/engraved onto a black painted panel and hand colored.

[steve B]

The dot patterns showing in the closeup would lead me to think that a mask of some sort was printed onto a plate that was then etched and the resin items were cast from that. There's a few other ways of doing it, but that's the easiest way to make a number of them. If the lines are very deep then it may have been done some other way.

Laser engraving wouldn't typically show the dot pattern unless you wanted it to. And the actual woodcut woudn't have it at all.

Detailed woodcuts were usually done on maple endgrain. The parts cut away don't print, so the depth of cut isn't important. (It is in engraving, the process used for most US stamps well into the 1970's. )

I've tried a couple woodcuts from my carpentry scraps, the material is great to work with. Making something come out really nice is quite challenging though and whoever did the Harpers stuff was very impressive.

Steve B

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by steve B

The dot patterns showing in the closeup would lead me to think that a mask of some sort was printed onto a plate that was then etched and the resin items were cast from that. There's a few other ways of doing it, but that's the easiest way to make a number of them. If the lines are very deep then it may have been done some other way.

Laser engraving wouldn't typically show the dot pattern unless you wanted it to. And the actual woodcut woudn't have it at all.

Detailed woodcuts were usually done on maple endgrain. The parts cut away don't print, so the depth of cut isn't important. (It is in engraving, the process used for most US stamps well into the 1970's. )

I've tried a couple woodcuts from my carpentry scraps, the material is great to work with. Making something come out really nice is quite challenging though and whoever did the Harpers stuff was very impressive.

Steve B

The scan is misleading - there is no dot pattern. As far as the depth of the etchings, it only varies in areas like hair, much like you see on printers blocks. It really looks like a huge printers block that has been painted a little.

[steve B]

Interesting. That puts my idea right out. Maybe laser etching was it. A mold could be made that way too, or even hand done. I've seen some impressive cast resin sculpture based on hand carved originals.

Steve B

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by steve B

Interesting. That puts my idea right out. Maybe laser etching was it. A mold could be made that way too, or even hand done. I've seen some impressive cast resin sculpture based on hand carved originals.

Steve B

It looks like the only way I will solve this mystery is by having someone like you personally inspect it. I did show this to a board member who is a vintage photography expert, and he didn't know what to make of it. Resin like this was certainly available in the 1890's, and the technique for creating it was as well, but I haven't seen vintage examples.

In addition, I'm not sure that there is any modern technique still in use that could duplicate it. All I need is to find a single modern example and I can at least consider the possibility that it's modern. But as I said, we discussed this six years ago with no resolution, and I haven't seen additional examples surface - normally, modern reproductions would be created with profit in mind, so you'd see more than two over a six-year period.