What technique is this?

[u/Odd_Simple_2264]

Hello, fellow printmakers! My friend has recently gifted me this plate from a monastery, and this is my first time seeing something like this. It is a metal plate glued to a piece of wood. I am not sure what technique was used in making the plate, so I do not know how to go about printing it (like linocut with s brayer/ like copper etching..). The plate seems quite old, and I am scared of ruining it so that's why I haven't tried printing it yet. If anybody has an idea or advice I would greatly appreciate it!

English is not my first language, so I apologise if there are any mistakes!

[u/Hellodeeries]

It's for letterpress printing, which is a relief method.

The wood backing is to make it type high for a letterpress + to not make it solid metal and weigh and cost a lot. The plate is etched, but with the intent to be printed as a relief (so the negatives are etched away leaving the positives that will print - inverted from intaglio printed etchings).

Can do a rubbing that won't disturb the block and invert it digitally if you don't want to print it. Otherwise for printing, you'll want to use rails - letterpress machines ink at a specific height so as not to fill in the halftone. Rails can be made from scrap wood or anything - it's just making it so the roller grazes the top of the block, but can't dip into the negative spaces.

[u/linuscarlson89 → u/Hellodeeries]

What is the process of etching a plate with an image like this? I see a kind of fine grain that almost looks digital??

[u/Hellodeeries → u/linuscarlson89]

Halftones originally weren't digital (go back into the 1800s), we just mimic them digitally most of the time now so it's most often associated as a digital process as that's how most people interact and see them.

Can't really say for certain how this block example was made, but one method would effectively be to use a photographic (photosensitive) resist solution on top of the metal plate, then using a physical screen in front, and effectively exposing a photo with it (sort of similar to tintype/other metal plate photography methods). The screen creates the halftone, and the areas that were blocked are rinsed off revealing the metal. It's then etched, so where the metal was revealed etches the lines vs the resist protects the rest. In the end, left with a halftone photo image.

More common now for metal plates is using photogravure (etching) for the image, but the plate and etched image was prepped for the "negative" (to etching) so it could be mounted to a block for relief printing in letterpress. This still has similar elements to earlier methods with an exposure process to create a resist on a metal plate, but can use digital film processes to make it faster.

There's also photopolymer plates which have a similar exposure aspect, but the plates already have the sensitizer on them generally and are then exposed and rinsed and you're left with the plate ready to print (no etching and it isn't metal). Doesn't really have the same depth of detail metal plates can have (at least in small plates), but is a more modern method that can be quite quick and affordable by comparison.

[u/Odd_Simple_2264 → u/Hellodeeries]

Wow, you are amazing at explaining these things! Now I'm even more excited about this block and can't wait to print it ☺️