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Wood Engraving was especially popular in the Victorian era, although it is actually the earliest form of (mass) printing.
The technique involves an engraver cutting into smooth wooden blocks, the blocks would be made of a hard wood, often several small blocks were engraved and strapped together at the time of printing to make a large picture. The block would then be inked and pressed against sheets of paper ... leaving an ink impression.
Wood Engravings would have been printed in a monotone colour, generally black, we always leave our prints in the original black and white state, however some dealers hand colour them, this is a question of taste. We feel that prints work best as they were meant to be, but some people prefer colour pictures for their walls, so you 'pays your money and makes your choice' as they say!!
Wood Engravings nearly always originated as book illustrations, either as text illustrations - eg. small pictures within the body of the page - or as full page plates.
Generally a text illustration will have printed text on the verso side which you may be able to see as a kind of shadow, this is known as bleeding.
Another source of Wood Engravings are the Victorian Periodicals such as the Illustrated London News, we do not stock prints from this source as they are of very low quality, however some of the images are quite interesting and are available elsewhere from other dealers.
Generally these kinds of prints are of the lowest quality, however they can also be quite rare, so can also be expensive. Some breeds can be extremely difficult to find, whereas others such as sporting dogs and foxhounds can be relatively common.
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