Victorian Engravings

The Victorian age was a time of rapid changes and developments in the techniques of engraving, etching, and lithography, and for the first time pictorial art found its way into every English home. Reproductive prints of works by the most famous painters of the day hung in gilt frames in fashionable parlors, or were pulled from popular magazines and tacked to bare walls in remote cottages. These prints played a large part in diffusing Victorian standards of idealism and morality throughout the expanding British Empire. In this book Rodney Engen presents an absorbing picture of the social, commercial and artistic atmosphere surrounding the production of engravings during the Victorian era. The study is illustrated with over 100 beautiful plates, presenting a pictorial record of the diversity of popular Victorian taste.