The Invention of Lithography

As my father, Peter Senefelder of Königshofen in Franken, was court actor in Munich, I had ample opportunity in early youth to see and read many theatrical pieces. Thus I develo...

This is one of the best in lithography, and perhaps the best, because it touches daily needs most directly. It can be used not only for all kinds of writings, but also for illus...

It was in August, 1800, that I went to Vienna with my brothers. In Regensburg we met my mother, who had come to visit one of her daughters because the decision of the Imperial A...

I left Vienna with Herr Gleissner and his family in October, 1806. First we traveled to Cloister Atl near Wasserburg in Bavaria, which Freiherr von Aretin had bought recently, a...

This differs from the other in that the fat, which is to attract the printing-color, is under the surface of the stone, the design having been either engraved-in or etched, and...

Probably most lithographers still believe, as I did once, that the etching with acids prepares the stone, and that the succeeding application of gum merely increases this prepar...

The first and most necessary material in a stone printery is the so-called chemical ink, which would better be named fatty or alkaline ink, since it is a mixture of fatty and re...

An exact description of all presses used hitherto for lithography would demand a book that would nearly equal the present one in magnitude. Many drawings would be necessary, whi...

Stone-printing has the unique property, owned by no other process, that it is possible to print relief and intaglio simultaneously. This property makes possible so many combinat...

Oiled paper is used for tracing a drawing accurately and then transferring it to the stone either by transferring or by re-tracing it on the stone. It must have the following pr...

The stone that has been used exclusively hitherto in Munich for printing is a stratified limestone, found in the territory from Dietfurt to Pappenheim, and along the Danube down...

One of the most necessary tools of lithography is the steel pen for writing and drawing on the stone. Simple as its manufacture is in principle, it demands much care and skill....

(1) Pen and brush designs. (2) Crayon drawing, simple and with several plates. (3) Transfer and Tracing. (4) Woodcut style. (5) Two kinds of Touche drawing, one of which is simi...

In the former, the fatty parts of the stone are not attacked by the etching fluid, while the rest of the stone is dissolved more or less. Therefore the fatty places are left in...