By Alois Senefelder
Translated from the Original German
by J. W. MULLER
THE INVENTION OF LITHOGRAPHY
Cloth 4to $5.00 Postpaid
THE FUCHS & LANG MANUFACTURING CO.
NEW YORK
THE INVENTION OF LITHOGRAPHY
[Illustration: SENEFELDER]
THE INVENTION OF
LITHOGRAPHY
BY
ALOIS SENEFELDER
TRANSLATED
FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN BY
J. W. MULLER
[Illustration]
NEW YORK: THE FUCHS & LANG
MANUFACTURING COMPANY
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
BY THE FUCHS & LANG MANUFACTURING COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
Alois Senefelder, not only the inventor, but the father and perfecter of
Lithography, wrote this story of his life and his invention in 1817. The
translator has followed his style closely, because he felt that the
readers would prefer to have this English edition represent Senefelder's
original German faithfully.
When Senefelder wrote, he had to invent many names for the processes,
manipulation-methods, and tools. These terms have been translated
literally even where modern practice has adopted other names.
The original German edition carried the following title-page:--
"COMPLETE | TEXT-BOOK OF STONE-PRINTING | CONTAINING | A CORRECT
AND LUCID INSTRUCTION | FOR ALL | VARIOUS MANIPULATIONS IN ALL
ITS BRANCHES AND METHODS | AND ALSO A | FULL HISTORY OF THIS ART
| FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THE PRESENT DAY. | WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED |
BY THE INVENTOR OF LITHOGRAPHY AND CHEMICAL PRINTING, | ALOIS
SENEFELDER. | WITH A PREFACE BY THE GENERAL-SECRETARY OF THE
ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN | MUNICH, THE DIRECTOR | FRIEDERICH
VON SCHLICHTEGROLL | MUNICH, 1821 | OBTAINABLE FROM THE AUTHOR
AND FROM E. A. FLEISCHMANN" |
The book was dedicated by Senefelder to Maximilian Joseph, then King
of Bavaria.
_July, 1911._
J. W. M.
PREFACE
A book like this requires no preface; it makes its own way, supported by
its contents. But the famous author deems that his acquaintance with me
gave him the direct impulse for producing this work, which has been
desired so long and from all sides; and he wishes that I shall say
something about the history of its production. I seize the opportunity
gladly to prove the esteem and the friendship that the talent of this
honorable contemporary and fellow countryman, a talent combined with the
utmost ambition and with childlike good nature and unselfishness, have
inspired in me.
One may not declare that his contemporaries showed indifference to the
invention of lithography to which his fortunate star led Herr Alois
Senefelder, and to the improvements that he sought with thousands of
experiments and restless labor. On the contrary, the invention has
spread itself with surprising speed through Europe and beyond, and has
been received with admiration everywhere. But the lack of proper
instruction, due to the many who had learned it only partially and
introduced it only for the sake of a small, passing profit, has hampered
its perfect success.
Therefore the inventor, who, happily, still lives among us, has been
urged from near and far to tell the story of his important, many-sided
discovery, and to give instructions for its use, that is, to produce
such a work as is before us now.
But the artistic genius, full of his subject, would far rather work,
experiment, strive, than write! Many times Herr Senefelder decided to
set down how he happened on this art, how the successive steps of its
development were reached, and at what point of development its various
processes now stand; but always his ceaselessly striving spirit showed
him something new that might be achieved, and forced him back again into
his element,--experimentation.
Thus the "Pattern Book," begun in 1809, remained unfinished and without
text; and the other work, announced two years ago by Herr Andre, in
Offenbach, as being undertaken by him with Herr Alois Senefelder, hardly
would have seen the light.
A forceful impetus from without was needed to compel Herr Senefelder to
fulfill the general request of the public. It came as follows. Many
statements in print attracted my attention. They credited the invention
of lithography to Paris, to London; and in Munich there were various
contradictory legends, some alleging that Herr Alois Senefelder had made
the very first experiments and others crediting them to Herr Schmidt in
Miesbach, at that time Professor in Munich. I considered it my duty to
clear away this uncertainty and to prepare a critical history of this
invention while it still was possible.
The weekly _Anzeiger für Kunst und Gewerbfleiss_ in the kingdom of
Bavaria, which has appeared since 1815, exists for the purpose of
producing annals of the art and industrial history of Bavaria.
Therefore, toward the end of 1816 and early in 1817, I inserted some
letters about the invention of lithography and called on all friends of
native art history to point out any inaccuracies and send proofs to the
contrary, that the truth might thus be ascertained about a subject of
great literary value for this generation and for posterity. More than
all, I urged Herr Alois Senefelder, then absent, "to produce a detailed
history of his invention as soon as possible, with a text-book
embellished by specimen plates, in which the full use of the art might
be truly and clearly explained." I sent this printed letter to Herr
Senefelder in Vienna.
The first object of my request has been without much result. Hardly a
single voice has been raised to uncover the correct and the incorrect in
the various stories with strictly historical accuracy, and thus to bring
the truth to light, that lithography may not experience what our
Klopstock sings: "Too oft in eternal night is cloaked the inventor's
great name!"
I have been more fortunate in my second object. Herr Alois Senefelder
recognized my good intention and my pure pleasure in this important art
that will give our Bavaria unending fame and spreading celebrity. Since
his return to Munich, it has been the subject of many conversations
between us, and I have endeavored to enliven the courage and
self-confidence of this remarkable man, who often was depressed by the
failure of many an enterprise.
My three endeavors--to win the gracious attention of our most high royal
family for the latest improvements in chemical printing attained through
Herr Senefelder's work; to impel the venerable national institution to
which I belong to investigate the art scientifically; and the
publication of the text-book and the history of the inventor--these have
been not without result.
His Majesty, our most gracious King, this all-honored Father of his
nation and his people, and long a gracious promoter of lithography, has
taken gracious cognizance of the newest, amazing experiments in
metallography and papyrography with which Herr Senefelder busied himself
last winter, has encouraged him magnanimously to publish the present
work, and has permitted that it shall be dedicated to his noble name.
Her Majesty, our supremely honored Queen, herself a connoisseur in the
creative arts, also has honored these experiments with her gracious
attention, and thus has enlivened the courage and the energy of the
artist.
The most celebrated technicians in the Royal Academy have examined these
processes and also the various small presses lately invented by Herr
Senefelder in order to make stone-printing, and also metal and paper
printing available for private use and business, and have given him the
most flattering testimonials. The Polytechnic Association of Bavaria
also has aided, through its before-mentioned weekly publication, in
making Herr Senefelder and his art, and especially his most recent
achievements, known in a wider field than might otherwise be possible,
and to bring him to the attention of his fellow citizens and interested
travelers.
At last, Herr Alois Senefelder has used the hours that he could spare
from his continuous experiments and investigations to write down the
history of his labors out of his faithful memory; and also to give a
full description of all methods invented by him to this time,
accompanied by highly instructive specimen pages, partly made by himself
and partly by artistic friends, but all printed either with his own
hand or under his direct supervision.
Thus with the past winter there developed a new, still more busy life of
this rare, useful man; and thus there originated the present work that I
do not hesitate to declare as belonging among the most noteworthy
productions of the present Leipsic Book Fair.
The book is in two parts: (1) the history of the invention and of the
various applications of the new art: (2) the description of the methods
for writing, drawing, engraving, transferring, etching, and printing,
stated with all the clearness possible, and accompanied with
object-lessons in the form of wonderfully successful and instructive
specimen plates.
With the great candor inherent in the character of the author he tells
faithfully how he came to make his first experiments, what mistakes he
made, with what inner and outer difficulties he contended, how one idea
led to another, what combinations he tried, what plans, successful and
unsuccessful, he made, and under what unrest and embarrassments he lived
for many years.
The minute detail of the history and the interpolation of the personal
relations of the author and his acquaintances may surprise many readers
at first sight; but many of these are intimately connected with the
development of stone-printing, and in the cases of others, the author
did not have time to re-write what really had been written as only the
first draft, because his original intention of re-writing would have
prevented the appearance of the book in the present Easter Book Fair.
In the history of an important invention, minuteness hardly can be
called a fault. How gladly would we read all the family circumstances of
Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, if there were such a history of the
beginnings of typography as now is before us about lithography!
Thus there has been fulfilled the desire that Herr Alois Senefelder tell
openly and plainly how he came to discover stone-printing. Now that his
testimony and claims lie open to all eyes, it is possible to compare it
with the other stories that are told, and to bring the necessary
accuracy into the investigation by sharply defining those things that
properly may be called stone-print. It is time to urge contemporaries
once more to declare anything known to them that is in contradiction of
this history, so that a critical history of stone-printing may be
produced, with a chronicle of what was done in the early years of the
art, how and by whom, so that we may learn if several minds had the idea
simultaneously, and thus to do justice to all. It is to be desired that
a writer equipped for the purpose with total non-partisanship, utter
truthfulness, and clearness of perception and judgment may do this not
unimportant service to literature very soon!
As to the text-book, forming the second part of this publication, it has
been demanded even more than the history.
Stone-printing has spread so much in recent years that a few certain
lithographers could no doubt give satisfactory instruction. But there
is only one voice among those who are acquainted with the matter
thoroughly, and that is, that Herr Alois Senefelder made not only the
earliest but the most numerous and various experiments, and therefore is
the foremost man to give instruction.
He is of an upright spirit, and I can assert with full conviction that
in this text-book his aim was not only to tell everything fully, but
also with the utmost accuracy. Already he has instructed many in
the art, trained many others, and thus has learned what are the
circumstances that ordinarily hinder the efforts of a beginner.
Even recently, according to his statement and that of Professor
Mitterer, whom I consider the best expert in lithography next to
Senefelder, there still have been phenomena that surprised lithographers
most unpleasantly in the midst of a piece of work, and ruined results as
if by witchcraft,--cases wherein, in two apparently perfectly similar
manipulations, there would not succeed to-day that which had succeeded
yesterday, nay, even an hour before. The text-book gives all
explanations and remedies for such cases that the wide experiences of
Senefelder have made known to him. Therefore, if an artist proceeds
exactly according to the instructions given here, and yet meets
obstacles, he need merely look for the reason in some small, unnoticed
detail or in the quality of his materials. He need not become
discouraged, for if he has faith in his faithful and candid teacher, he
will attain the goal.
Besides the branches and methods already known and practiced with
success outside of Munich, as in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Berlin, London,
Paris, etc., this text-book teaches several methods that had not been
made public by the inventor till now; and the fundamental principles of
those methods already known are stated here solidly. He gives
information also of his most recent attempts to use metal plates as well
as the stone paper recently invented by him.
Although the procedure in these two latter methods resembles
stone-printing largely, it differs so much in some points from real
lithography that Herr Senefelder proposes to publish a work about these
processes especially, which may then serve as a supplement to this one.
So may this work go forth in the world under good auspices, to increase
the fame of its author, secure for him the respect of all friends of art
in and outside of Germany, and become an encouragement for him to
dedicate his life further to his greatly promising art and its fullest
development!
Honor in rich measure has come to him already through his art. A worldly
wise man in his place would have become a wealthy one. That he is not;
but our magnanimous King has made him secure against want during his
remaining life, and my knowledge of his character assures me that he
will utilize this, and any other advantage that may accrue to him in
time to come through this work or his art, for perfecting it, and then
to train his only son, now five years old, to the art, so that he may
practice it in future with honor to his father's name.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLICHTEGROLL.
MUNICH, EASTER DAY, 1818.
SECTION I
HISTORY OF STONE-PRINTING
PART I
FROM 1796 TO 1800
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 developed such a love for this branch of
literature and for the theatre that I would have become an actor myself
had I been permitted to obey my inclination. But my father, who was
determined not to permit any of his children to choose the stage,
compelled me to study law. I could satisfy my longings only occasionally
by playing a few times in private theatricals and by venturing on a few
dramatic writings in my hours of recreation. In my eighteenth year
(1789) the question arose, at a gathering of youngsters, as to how we
should entertain ourselves in the approaching Carnival time. We decided
to give a little private play.
Many pieces were proposed, but none seemed suitable, because each one
wished to play a good and suitable part, and, besides, we could not fill
most of the parts, as we lacked women. We were almost giving up hope
when Herr Kuerzinger, now court actor, proposed to me to write a play,
as I had begun one shortly before that happened to suit each of my
friends.
I finished the little piece, _Die Mädchen Kenner_, in a short time. It
was ready for production, when through accident we were disappointed
about securing the private theatre on which we had counted. We were
emboldened to request leave to produce it in the Kurfürst's Court
Theatre and succeeded, thanks to my father's aid. The over-kind praise
which it won encouraged me to have the play printed. Although I was
pretty generous with free copies among my friends, I received so much
from Lentner, the book-dealer in Munich, that a net profit of fifty
gulden remained to me.
I had not worked eight days on the little thing, and had made all this
money, without counting the pleasure of the work. No wonder that now I
feared no longer for my future! My love for the theatre became
overpowering, and as my father died soon afterward (1791), and I found
no further assistance toward completing my studies in Ingolstadt, I
resolved to become a dramatic author and actor.
I found no place for me in the Court Theatre. Its leaders were opposed
to my family, because my mother with her large family received a larger
pension, through the favor of the Kurfürst, than she could have expected
in ordinary course. In a few strolling theatres, such as Regensburg,
Nürnberg, Erlangen, and Augsburg, where I endured privation and
misfortune enough, my enthusiasm was well dampened in the course of two
years. I decided, as I could see no other prospects for the moment
despite my not inconsiderable attainments, to support myself in future
as author.
I had written several dramatic pieces already that had won sufficient
applause. Therefore I decided to have some of these printed in order to
meet my immediate expenses. I gave one of them to the printing
establishment of Herr Hübschmann, in Munich, and when the first folio
was finished, I made the proposition to Herr Lentner to take some or all
of the copies. He told me that I would have done better to let him have
the manuscript; but since it had been begun, he told me to make sure
that it be finished before the beginning of the Leipsic Easter Fair, in
which case he promised to obtain for me one hundred gulden net, after
deducting all costs. I begged Herr Hübschmann to finish the printing,
but, as he assured me that it was impossible, I took the remaining
folios to another printer. Despite this the play was not printed till
two weeks after the fair, and I received from Herr Lentner barely enough
to pay the printing cost.
My hope of profit was lost. I had, however, seen the entire procedure of
printing, because I had spent many a day in the establishments. I found
that it would not be hard for me to learn, and could not withstand the
desire to own a small printing establishment myself. "Thus," thought I,
"I can print my productions myself, and so alternate healthfully between
mental and physical activities." I could earn a decent living, too, and
thus become an independent man.
This idea controlled me so that I studied all sorts of ways to realize
it. If I had possessed the necessary money, I would have bought types, a
press and paper, and printing on stone probably would not have been
invented so soon. The lack of funds, however, forced me to other
expedients. At first I thought of etching letters in steel. These
matrices I planned then to impress on pear wood, in which the letters
would show in relief, somewhat like the cast type of the book printers,
and they could have been printed like a wood-cut. A few experiments
showed me the possibility of this, and I could easily have invented a
machine with which the moulding could have been done more quickly than a
printer could set his type. I reserve the right to use this possibly
fruitful idea in future with improvements. At the time, however, I had
to give up the whole thing through lack of implements and sufficient
skill in engraving.
Then it struck me that if I had only enough types to set one column or
folio, I could press this into a soft material, transfer the impression
to a board covered with soft sealing-wax, and reproduce the relief plate
thus obtained in stereotype form. The attempt succeeded perfectly. I
made a sort of dough of clay, fine sand, flour, and coal-dust, which,
being firmly kneaded, took the impression very well, and was so dry in a
quarter of an hour that I could print warmed sealing-wax thoroughly well
with a small press. I inked these letters of sealing-wax relief with
printing-ink laid on with a leather roller stuffed with horse-hair and
obtained a result as clean as any obtained from ordinary types. By
mixing finely powdered gypsum with the sealing-wax I made the latter
harder than the ordinary type composition. Thus there was nothing in the
way of my making stereotype plates (which I did not know by this name at
that time), except a few minor appliances and a small stock of types.
But even this exceeded my financial power and I gave up the plan,
especially as I had conceived a new one during my experiments.
This was to learn to write out ordinary type letters exactly, but
reversed. I planned that as soon as I attained the skill, I would write
them with an elastic steel pen on a copper plate covered in ordinary
manner with etching surface, etch, and let the copper-plate printers
print them. In a few days I had such skill in reverse writing that I
attacked the etching on copper bravely. Here, to be sure, I met greater
difficulties. Writing on copper over the etching surface was far more
difficult than writing on paper. Then the preparation of the plate, the
etching, etc., demanded some practice; but all this I hoped to conquer
in time. The one thing that troubled me was that I could not correct the
errors made during writing. The accessories of copper-plate engravers,
especially the so-called cover varnish, were quite unknown to me. I knew
no remedy except to paint the faulty places over with molten wax, but
the covering generally became so thick that I could not work through it
properly and had to leave the corrections for the graving stilus, which,
however, I could not handle at the time.
As, however, the proofs were thoroughly satisfactory to me, I labored
desperately to overcome the difficulty. During my student years I had
attained much chemical knowledge, and I knew that most of the resinous
products which withstand acid, as well as the fats, wax, tallow, and so
forth, can be dissolved and diluted partly in etheric oils and spirits
of wine, and partly in alkalies. My problem was to obtain a thin mass
which would permit itself to be spread very thinly in cold condition
over the copper etching surface, dry quickly, become sufficiently firm
after drying without getting tough, and, above all, be something that
would not attack the etching surface. A few trials with spirits of wine
and various resinous forms gave no satisfaction. The one experiment that
I made with oil of turpentine and wax also failed, presumably because I
diluted the mixture more than necessary, which caused it to flow too
much and dissolve the etching surface, at which time several well-done
parts of the engraving were ruined. Besides, this mixture dried only
slowly to the degree necessary for working. Fortunately I made no
further experiments with this material, because then I should not have
invented stone-printing, as I know now how to make a cover varnish that
is quite satisfactory.
I turned, instead, to an experiment with wax and soap, which succeeded
beyond all expectations. A mixture of three parts of wax with one part
of common tallow soap, melted over the fire, mixed with some fine
lampblack, and then dissolved in rainwater, gave me a sort of black ink
with which I could correct faulty spots most easily.
Now I needed only practice in order to carry out my project of etching
my literary productions in copper. This presented a new difficulty.
After I had written on my single little copper plate, etched it, and
pulled proofs at the house of a friend who possessed a copper-plate
press, I had to spend some hours again laboriously grinding and
polishing the plate, a process which also wore away the copper fast.
This led me to practice on zinc, which was easier to scrape and polish.
An old zinc plate of my mother's was requisitioned at once, but the
results were very unsatisfactory, because the zinc probably was mixed
with lead, and I had used only aqua fortis instead of more powerful
acid.
I did not continue trials with zinc, because just then I obtained a
handsome piece of Kellheimer stone for the purpose of rubbing down my
colors on it; and it occurred to me that if I painted this stone plate
with my wax ink, it would serve as well for practicing as copper or
zinc, with very little labor in grinding and polishing. The experiments
succeeded, and though I had not thought originally that the stone itself
might be used for printing (the samples I had seen hitherto of this
Kellheim limestone were too thin to withstand the pressure exerted in
printing), I soon began to believe that it was possible. It was much
easier to do good work on the stone than on the copper. I observed also
that I needed weaker and much diluted aqua fortis.
A stone mason told me that he could provide me with this sort of
limestone in plates from one inch to eight inches thick. Thus I needed
not to fear cracking of the stone; and the only thing that I needed to
invent, in order to use the stone just like copper, was either a way to
give the stone a better polish, or else a tint which would be easier to
rub away than the ordinary copper-plate printing-ink. The stone will not
take the polish that is demanded with ordinary printer's ink,--and
perhaps this is the reason why the stone has not been used long before
my time as substitute for copper, for I imagine that such attempts must
have been made.
I tried all possible kinds of polishing and grinding without attaining
my purpose completely. The result was best when I poured a mixture of
one part of concentrated oil of vitriol and four or five parts of water
over the stone after polishing it. This mixture, which is very sharp,
has the property of boiling immediately when poured over the stone, but
ceasing instantly, so that one is tempted to believe that the vitriol
has sated itself and lost its power. This is not so, however; for the
same fluid, placed on an untouched part of the stone, boils again at
once. The reason is that a firm skin of gypsum forms at once on the
stone, and this remains impervious to the fluid. If now the etching
fluid is poured off and the stone is rubbed lightly with a rag, it
attains a shining polish. Unfortunately this is so thin and weak that
one can make barely fifty impressions without repeating the process,
which involves some loss to the drawing. But if one desires to print in
the present chemical style, that is, wet, and the stone is polished
before the drawing, one can make several thousand imprints, which will
be described in the proper place.
All experiments to find a color easy to wipe away showed me that on a
stone prepared with oil of vitriol none was better than a light oil
varnish with fine Frankfurter black and some tartar. This mixture could
be washed off with a weak solution in spring water of potash and common
salt. However, it happened often that slight carelessness in washing
destroyed designed parts which took color again afterward only after
much trouble. Recollection of this occurrence, which I could not
understand clearly at the time, led me some years later to the invention
of the chemical stone-printing of to-day.
I have told all these things fully in order to prove to the reader that
I did not invent stone-printing through lucky accident, but that I
arrived at it by a way pointed out by industrious thought. It will be
seen that I knew the ink, before I thought of its use on stone. The
stone I used at first only to practice writing. The ease of writing on
stone lured me then to try to make it available for direct printing. To
do this, I had to discover a way to rub away the black as completely
from all unetched parts of the stone as the copper-plate printer can do
it from his surface, in comparison with which the stone was but slightly
smooth.
At this time my further experiments with this etched form of
stone-printing were entirely checked by a new, accidental discovery.
Until now I had invented little that was new, but simply had applied the
copper-plate etching method to stone. But this new discovery founded an
entirely new form of printing, which basically became the foundation of
all succeeding methods.
Had the stone merely proved available as substitute for copper, I would
have returned to copper as soon as I could afford it, despite several
advantages of stone, and for the following reasons: first, the necessary
weight and thickness of the stones; second, because the printing process
was slower than with copper; third, because probably I never would have
become sufficiently skilled in the difficult manipulation of washing
off; but chiefly, because the necessary spur, the originality of the
discovery, would have been lacking, since I remembered that as a child
of five or six I had seen a music-printery in Frankfurt or Mainz where
the notes were etched in black slate-stone. I had played often with the
broken stones, which lay in a heap near our house. Enough, I was not the
first discoverer of stone-etching, nor of stone-printing; and only after
I made this new discovery which I will describe now, which led me from
the engraved to the relief process, with my new ink, might I call myself
the inventor of an art.
At that time I could not guess that I was to invent a form of printing
different even from this new and original form, a method which was to be
based not on mechanical but purely chemical properties. Even this
method, new in 1796, still was purely mechanical in its purpose, whereas
the present printing method, which I began in 1799, may be called purely
chemical.
I had just ground a stone plate smooth in order to treat it with etching
fluid and to pursue on it my practice in reverse writing, when my mother
asked me to write a laundry list for her. The laundress was waiting, but
we could find no paper. My own supply had been used up by pulling
proofs. Even the writing-ink was dried up. Without bothering to look
for writing materials, I wrote the list hastily on the clean stone, with
my prepared stone ink of wax, soap, and lampblack, intending to copy it
as soon as paper was supplied.
As I was preparing afterward to wash the writing from the stone, I
became curious to see what would happen with writing made thus of
prepared ink, if the stone were now etched with aqua fortis. I thought
that possibly the letters would be left in relief and admit of being
inked and printed like book-types or wood-cuts. My experience in
etching, which had showed me that the fluid acted in all directions, did
not encourage me to hope that the writing would be left in much relief.
But the work was coarse, and therefore not so likely to be under-cut as
ordinary work, so I made the trial. I poured a mixture of one part aqua
fortis and ten parts of water over the plate and let it stand two inches
deep for about five minutes. Then I examined the result and found the
writing about one tenth of a line or the thickness of a playing-card in
relief.
A few finer strokes had been injured slightly, but the others had hardly
lost breadth noticeably and not at all in depth, so that I had good
reason to hope that a well-written plate, particularly in type letter,
would be susceptible of much better relief.
Eagerly I began inking in. I used a fine leather ball, stuffed with
horsehair, and inked it very gently with thick linseed oil varnish and
lampblack. I patted the inscription many times with this ball. The
letters all took the color well, but it also went into all spaces
greater than half a line. That this was due to the over-great elasticity
of the ball was clear to me. So I cleansed my plate with soap and water,
made the leather tense, and used less color. Now I found color only in
such spaces as were two or more lines apart.
I saw that I could attain my purpose better with a dauber of stiffer
material. I tried at once with a piece of glass from a broken mirror,
and as this succeeded fairly well, I tried elastic metal plates. Finally
I made an entirely satisfactory appliance out of a thin board, very
smoothly planed and covered with a fine cloth.
My further experiments with this relief plate succeeded far better than
my previous ones with etched letters. The inking in was much easier, and
hardly one quarter of the force was necessary for making impressions.
Thus the stones were not so liable to crack, and, what was the most
important for me, this method of printing was entirely new, and I might
hope to obtain a franchise and even financial aid. This hope grew when I
learned that Riegel of Munich, who had invented a new sort of
Frankfurter black, had received ten thousand gulden to erect a factory,
although no human being could use it as a sufficient substitute, as I
proved by many trials. I saw the great field for my stone-printing art
and did not doubt that I would obtain assistance, even should it be only
a twentieth part of what Herr Riegel had received for his entirely
worthless process.
The new art was invented, and soon was sufficiently practiced; but again
came the need for a little capital, to buy a press, some stones, paper,
tools, and so forth. If I did not wish to give up my hopes again, I must
seek some way to obtain the necessary means. All my endeavors were
fruitless. Only one way showed itself. An acquaintance, who served in
the artillery, had offered to pay two hundred gulden for a substitute.
In my helplessness I offered myself. I thought: "Once you are in the
artillery and have mastered the exercises, you can get furlough and the
permission to do your printing. You can pay others to do your sentry
goes, and thus there will be only a few weeks a year in which the
regiment will demand your presence. As soon as you have earned a few
hundred gulden you can get a substitute yourself, or, at worst--how soon
six years will pass! Perhaps you can make your fortune in the artillery,
too! You will display zeal, and your knowledge is such that probably few
in the corps will be superior to you. Mathematics, and especially
mechanics and geography, were ever your favorite studies; you were one
of the first of the Munich Lyceum in these branches; therefore it is
certain that you will be noticed and promoted"--and other such
chimerical hopes.
On the third day I went with a transport of recruits to Ingolstadt,
which then was the quarters of the Bavarian artillery. I entered that
city with feelings different from those with which I had left it as
Academician. But the thought of my invention elevated my spirit to a
certain dignity and comforted me with the prophecy of a better future. I
was presented to the chief of company and slept a night in the barracks,
where unpleasant remarks and the conduct of a vulgar corporal cast heavy
shadows over the coming soldiering. Next morning, when I was to be
enrolled and named Prague as my birth-place, I was informed that a
recent royal order shut out all foreigners from the Bavarian service. So
I started on my return, poorer by a hope, but not in entire despair. As
I looked down from the Danube bridge into the majestic stream, where as
a student I was nearly drowned once, I could not quite prevent the
thought that my rescue at that time had not been fortunate, since a too
unkind fate seemed to deny me even the one means of support, open to the
most helpless, that of the army.
Still, though cheated by hope a thousand times, I ever followed her
lures again, and a new plan instantly formed itself to replace the one
that had just gone to wreck. I decided to give up my literary work for
the time being and work as a printer for wages.
Some very badly printed music that I bought in Ingolstadt awakened the
idea that with my new printing process I could furnish much better work.
I decided to go at once to Herr Falter, the music-dealer of Munich, to
interest him in my invention and obtain a small advance of money. Had I
done this, my art might have been more thoroughly perfected long ago;
but, again, it might never have been developed as it has been, for it
was amply sufficient already for music-printing. My shyness, however,
prevented me from addressing Herr Falter. Twice I was at his door, and
each time I retreated. The second time I met a good acquaintance, a
musician named Schrott. In reply to my inquiry if he knew Herr Falter,
he said "No," but he told me that the court musician, Gleissner, had
paid recently to have several masses printed and intended to publish
some more church music soon. Who was happier than I over this news!
Herr Gleissner was a good friend of old. While I was in the theatre I
had engaged him to compose several songs, and had found him a humane and
righteous man. Within half an hour I was in his house and explaining my
invention to his wife, he being absent. I aroused her interest so much
that she seemed thoroughly eager to have me hurry back with a little
press model, in order to show them both the working of the process.
The entire behavior of the woman was so open and artless that I
dismissed my first thought, "I might be cheated out of my invention,"
and hurried to Herr Gleissner in the afternoon with my simple apparatus.
My printing succeeded absolutely. Gleissner marveled at the swiftness
and beauty of the impressions, and, knowing my penniless condition, he
offered of his own free will to pay for a small printery.
My mother had given me a press already. It was the ordinary copper-plate
press with two cylinders. True, it was very roughly made, being a house
carpenter's work, but it had cost only six gulden. However, one could
make very pretty impressions from stone with it. To spare Herr
Gleissner's treasury, I contented myself with it for the time. I bought
a small stock of stones, paper, and other necessary articles.
Herr Gleissner composed twelve songs with clavier accompaniment. I wrote
them rapidly on stone and made one hundred and twenty impressions with
the aid of a day laborer. Everything, composition, writing on stone and
printing, was finished in fourteen days. From Herr Falter, who bought
one hundred copies, Herr Gleissner received the sum of one hundred
gulden. Stones, which could be used over and over again, paper, color,
and wages had cost barely thirty gulden; thus we had a clear profit of
seventy gulden, earned in fourteen days, and I gained so much happy hope
that I thought myself richer than Croesus.
We were gay and merry. Through his patron, Count von Törring, then
President of the Royal Chamber, Herr Gleissner had presented an
impression of our first work to the Kurfürst Karl Theodor, and had
received one hundred gulden out of the Cabinet Treasury, with the
promise of a franchise.
A succeeding little piece of work, "Duets for Two Flutes, by Gleissner,"
brought forty gulden more into our chest, and finally our finances, as
well as a bright success for our institution, seemed assured by a
contract closed with the Countess von Herting to print a cantata on the
death of Mozart by Cannabich, the musical director, which promised us a
profit of one hundred and fifty gulden for two or three weeks' work.
During this time I had presented specimens of work to the Royal Academy
of Sciences, with a description of the advantages of the art, in which I
named particularly the cheapness, and said that the impression had been
made on a press costing not more than six gulden. To my amazement,
instead of the expected honorable mention, I received a sum of twelve
gulden from the vice-president of the Academy, Herr von Vachiery, with
the information that the members had voted favorably for my invention,
and that, as my expenses amounted to only six gulden, according to my
own statement, I would, no doubt, be satisfied with a sum double this. I
had expected an entirely different appreciation from the sentinels of
the arts and sciences, whose office was to test the value of this new
discovery and call the Government's attention to it if favorable. A mere
monetary reward, therefore, especially so small a one, could not
possibly give me much pleasure.
Promising as our beginning was (1793), there came a sad period soon
enough for the art, for me, and also for Herr Gleissner. We had ordered
a new press as soon as our income permitted. I expected to produce a
masterpiece with the first impression. Instead of that, there appeared
the very opposite, a dirty and smeared imprint. We suspected that we had
made some mistake in method. The second attempt, however, was worse than
the first, if possible. To be brief, of twenty trials, made with the
greatest industry and toil, we obtained only two or three that were even
average.
As long as I live I shall be unable to understand how we could have been
so blind at that time. We sought the cause of failure in everything
except the true thing,--an alteration that made the new press different
from the old one, which unfortunately had been already destroyed. Later,
after I had invented the so-called lever or gallows press, the thing was
clear to me at once. But by that time it had cost me and Herr Gleissner
two years full of toil, worry, and sorrow. In the contract with the
Countess von Herting the date of completion of the work had been
stipulated, because she wished to surprise Herr Cannabich with it on his
birthday. We had barely four weeks left and not a single sheet had been
finished. With press alterations, trial impressions, and so forth, we
had wasted money and time, and paper by the ream. Our loss amounted to
more than one hundred and fifty gulden, and still there was no prospect
of final success. Pressed for results by the Countess, our entire
reputation and the honor of my invention were at stake. Added to this
came many other annoyances, especially the complaints of Frau Gleissner,
who charged that I had destroyed the original, perfectly satisfactory
press against her will. These tested my courage sadly.
The cause of all this trouble was so petty that I really must have been
half-stupefied by the fear of not keeping our pledges, otherwise I must
have perceived it at once.
To make my first imperfect press I had bought a piece of wood from a
wheelwright in order to have it turned into two cylinders. Hardly had
the two been in the house a day before each one split so that a
longitudinal crack of two inches width appeared. As the upper cylinder
was thick enough to make an impression of a whole folio of sheet music
without revolving so far as to let the crack reach the stone, I
contented myself with it temporarily. Now, in order not to spoil the
impressions, I had to begin each revolution of the cylinder at the
crack, for otherwise the crack might have come at the middle or end of
the impression and given no imprint of that part. Therefore, as the
stone was pushed under the cylinder at the crack, it was already gripped
before the impression began, and was drawn through at once. With the new
press, however, the upper cylinder had to draw the stone between both
cylinders in order to bring it under its pressure. But in doing this,
the new press first pulled the linen stretched over the printing-frame
till it would yield no more and forced the stone powerfully under the
cylinder, during which of course the paper under the linen was pulled
over the inked stone and smeared.
Several attempts to rectify this trouble were unsuccessful. Probably I
would have discovered the remedy finally,--either that the upper
cylinder must not first be pressed on the stone, which must be under it
before each impression began, or that I need only use tightly stretched
leather instead of linen. But I decided, instead, in order to complete
our work if possible, to have a press made in all haste by a carpenter,
of a style like the book-printers' press, wherein the force is applied
instantly from above.
As everything was very rough, the new press was ready in eight days. The
first experiment, with a small stone, seemed to succeed. But the larger
stones would not give thorough impressions, probably because of the
uneven surface of the press, which was merely of wood. I increased the
power enormously. A stone of three hundredweight was elevated with
pulleys and released suddenly to fall ten feet. It forced a lever down
on the press with a pressure of more than ten thousand pounds. The
plates gave fair impressions by this means, but generally they were
cracked after the first, second, or third impression.
To determine how much downward force was needed to print a sheet of
music, I took a well-ground stone a square inch in area, laid moistened
paper on an inked printing-stone, over this a sixfold layer of paper,
then a double layer of fine cloth, finally the square inch of stone, and
then weights ranging from one to three hundredweight.
This experience taught me that the square inch of surface demanded three
hundredweights of force to make a good impression in a few seconds, and
almost less than half that weight when I allowed it to act for a whole
minute. According to this calculation the entire sheet, which contained
about one hundred square inches, would have demanded thirty thousand
pounds; and the stone could have withstood this without cracking, had I
been able to apply the pressure evenly. But the imperfections of the
press made it necessary to apply a pressure three times as great, and
this the stones could not bear.
To correct the defects of this press was more than I cared about,
after I was nearly killed by the three hundredweights, which fell
accidentally, and, as I stood immediately under it, would have beaten
out my brains had not a miracle caused the load to catch and hold. The
thought that a similar accident might cause the death of one of my men
made me hate the whole press, all the more so as I had conceived what
seemed to me at the time an exceedingly happy idea for a very simple
and not costly printing-machine.
Before I possessed a press of my own, I used to pull proofs of my work
in the following manner, in order to avoid the constant trips to a
printer. I laid the dampened paper on the inked stone. Over it I laid
some heavy paper, and then a sheet of stiff, carefully smoothed dry
paper. Then I took a piece of polished wood and rubbed this over the
upper sheet of paper, holding the latter firmly to prevent slipping. I
continued the rubbing, using more or less power according to whether I
wanted the impressions deep or pale. Thus I obtained impressions very
often that could not have been better.
I wondered why this could not be done on a large scale, and proceeded to
try at once. I stretched a piece of linen firmly over a wooden frame two
feet long and wide. On this linen I pasted a sheet of strong paper,
polished on the upper side with wax. Then with two bands the frame was
fastened to an ordinary wooden table. Then the stone was fastened on the
table under the frame. Inside of the printing-frame was a smaller frame
with cords, to hold the paper, which had a layer of gray blotting-paper
under it. With a piece of polished wood, or a piece of glass such as is
used by polishers, I rubbed the upper waxed paper thoroughly, making
sure that every spot was touched.
The first proof, and several succeeding ones, which I made myself,
turned out so excellent that probably few better impressions ever
have been made since. Two more presses were made at once, and six
printers hired. The work might still be finished in the stipulated
time. New hopes thrilled us. Hastily I inscribed the stones and the
printing began. But--oh, human weakness! Does it seem credible that
of my six helpers not one could master the extremely simple method of
manipulation, the mere matter of rubbing evenly and thoroughly? Of six
impressions hardly one ever reached perfection. There were blank spaces
here and there. Yes, even when, accidentally, they produced three
sections of a sheet correctly, the fourth invariably was a flat failure,
and thus ruined the entire sheet. We would have been glad enough had we
lost even one half the paper, if only we could have saved our credit by
completing the work, regardless of our money loss. But of three reams of
paper only thirty-three impressions were won in the end.
I will merely touch on the painful scenes that ensued. The stipulated
time had almost expired and no prospect of results. The manuscript and
the paper remaining in stock were taken away from us and given to Herr
Falter, while we had to suffer severe censure from the Countess, and in
her name from others. Herr Gleissner had to pay for new paper, which
made a monthly deduction from his salary necessary. The grant of our
privilege was endangered, for the Kurfürst had obtained a poor opinion
of our process. Indeed, so long as the Kurfürst Karl Theodor lived, all
our efforts to obtain a privilege were fruitless. We could not even
succeed in having it proposed, although the referee, Herr von
Stubenrauch, made us promises from month to month.
All the money we had earned was lost; debts burdened us; and a monthly
deduction of pay, with the mocking laughter of those who had been made
envious by our first successes, was the entire reward for our endeavors
to make a new art. As it was only the lack of a good press that had
caused our failure, I went to Herr Falter, with whom I had become
acquainted through Herr Gleissner, and told him the reasons for not
finishing the cantata in time. I told him that if he were willing to
have a proper press built, I was willing to print his works for him, in
his own residence, which was his stipulation, provided I could prepare
the stones at home. We agreed, and I ordered a great cylinder press made
at his expense. To avoid the old trouble I had both cylinders fitted
with cogs, which gave satisfactory results if both printers who handled
the press were careful to begin turning the cylinders at the same
moment. The double friction of the two rollers made them both pull on
the printing-frame and the stone, where, before, the lower cylinder had
done just the opposite. The greater periphery of the upper cylinder,
which was almost fifteen inches thick, helped also. And to this day I
consider this form of press the best for all methods, especially if the
stones are thick enough, if one has not to consider the very greatest
speed; for in speed this press is decidedly inferior to the lever press
and other styles. On the other hand, the pressure is much more gentle,
more perpendicular, and less liable to pull the paper out of place than
is possible with even the best so-called friction presses. Only there
should be added to the cogs an appliance by which the upper cylinder has
a screw adjusted over its centre, so that it can be forced down for each
impression after the stone is under it. Figure 1, plate I, is the
picture of such a cylinder press, made for stone-printing.
As soon as the press was ready and erected, I began to inscribe on stone
the music of _Die Zauberflöte_, arranged for quartette by Herr Danzy,
and with Herr Gleissner we began the printing.
But Herr Gleissner became dangerously ill. I trained two soldiers to do
the printing, left the entire printing process to Herr Falter, and
limited myself to the work of delivering the stones to him. The workers
ruined so much paper that Herr Falter could not make it pay, and
returned to etching on copper.
During this time Herr Schmidt, professor at the military academy, had
begun to etch on stone. As I discovered long afterwards, he was a good
acquaintance of Herr Gleissner, who visited him often. Within the last
year there is a strenuous attempt to make this Herr Schmidt appear to be
the inventor of printing from stone, though probably he never desired
this. There have been publications about it already. I shall not notice
what has been said, and will let the matter speak for itself. From the
foregoing the reader will have seen the natural but laborious way in
which fate led me to this invention. If Herr Schmidt made a similar
discovery at that time, he was much more fortunate than I. According to
his own letter, printed in the _Anzeiger für Kunst und Gewerbfleiss_,
the course of his invention was as follows. He saw a gravestone in the
Frauen-Kirche, in Munich, on which letters and pictures were in relief.
"That must have been done with acid; it would be possible to print from
it!" thought he, and the invention was completed.
If it is so easy to gain the honor of an invention, then, indeed, I was
unlucky to have undergone so much toil. But according to my opinion,
there was nothing new in the whole discovery. The thought that "this
was etched" assumed the invention and the use of etching beforehand.
That such coarse, thick, and highly relieved inscriptions as those on
gravestones could be inked and used for printing would strike anybody
who knew even a little of printing. If, however, Herr Schmidt added to
his idea the second, that fine and, therefore, only slightly elevated
inscriptions and illustrations could be inked and printed with the aid
of appliances to be invented for the purpose,--if he did this and
executed it before me, or, at least, before he had knowledge of my work,
then indeed the honor belongs to him of having invented mechanical
printing from stone, either before me or simultaneously. But as a matter
of fact, neither he nor I can claim to be the first who thought of using
stones for printing. Only the "how?" is the new thing in the case.
At that time (1796) I had not invented stone-printing, but, firstly, an
ink available for writing on stone and resistant to acid, which ink I
invented out of my brains and not, like Herr Schmidt, out of an old
Nürnberg book: secondly, I invented a practical tool for inking the
slightly elevated letters: and thirdly, the so-called gallows or lever
press, of which I shall speak later.
As I do not know what were the circumstances surrounding Herr Schmidt at
the time, and I cannot, therefore, make any inquiries, I am willing to
take his word if he will declare as an honest man that he printed from
stone before July, 1796. That his method of printing was different from
mine, and that he had absolutely not the slightest knowledge of chemical
printing from stone, which I invented in 1798, I know from indubitable
evidence.
He made many attempts with his pupils to produce drawings on stones, but
presumably his impressions were not successful, for those stones that I
saw afterward at Herr Schulrath Steiner's had been etched first and the
spaces then engraved away very deeply with all sorts of steel
instruments, after the manner of wood-cuts, so that they might properly
be called stone-cuts in relief. He had these stones printed in the
Schul-fond's book-printery, and I hear that the impressions were very
good. I saw none myself.
However, Professor Schmidt's experiments were the means of making me
acquainted with Herr Schulrath Steiner, who encouraged me so much that I
conceived many ideas in order to fulfill his wishes, so that at last the
art of printing from stone achieved its present honorable position.
Herr Schulrath Steiner, an intimate friend of Professor Schmidt, was
director of the Schul-fond's printery. As such he was concerned with
many prints. Herr Schmidt's idea of publishing stone-etched pictures of
poisonous plants for school use was approved by him; and as the attempts
did not satisfy him, he decided to turn to me. At that time the
Schul-fond was to print some church songs. This gave him the opportunity
of visiting me. He asked me if the musical notes could not be so etched
or cut in relief in stone that they could be made up with ordinary
book-types and thus printed in the ordinary book-presses. I promised to
try it. However, the necessary deep engraving of the spaces was too
laborious, so that it would have been easier to do it in wood. As an
expedient we printed the text first with ordinary types in the
book-press and then printed in the music with stones in the stone-press.
Meantime I tried to attain our purpose in other ways, connected with
some of my early experiments. My best success was with the following
method. On a stone polished with sand I painted a layer, equal to two or
three card-thicknesses, of burned, finely powdered gypsum, butter, and
alum, mixed with a proper amount of water. As soon as it was dry I
inscribed the music with steel needles of various sizes on the surface
of the stone, which was of a somewhat dark, almost gray color, so that I
could see it more easily through the soft, white mass. Having finished
the drawing I took warm sealing-wax smeared on wood, and applied it to
the stone while it was warm with a hand-press. After cooling, the white
mass was fast to the sealing-wax and quite loose from the stone, and it
was scrubbed away clean with water and a brush, after which the drawing
appeared on the wood in elevated wax extremely clear and clean, like a
wood-cut. The spaces were so deep that the plate could be printed in
regular book-printing manner.
Later I made trial of a composition of lead, zinc, and bismuth, and
this succeeds thoroughly with proper care. So here we would have still
another printing process, which has the advantage over all others that
the inscription need not be made reversed, as the impression on the wax
or lead reverses it automatically.
If the white mass is laid on more thickly, one can make the handsomest
patterns for calico much more quickly than has been possible heretofore
with wood-cuts. A little more care is necessary, because no stroke must
be made entirely through the mass, when it is laid on thick. My
experiments in that direction all exceeded expectations, and it is to be
regretted that I had no opportunity thereafter to perfect this invention
more, or use it practically. The experiments had no value even for Herr
Schulrath Steiner, for whom I made them, as he never had use for the
process afterward. Indeed, I would have forgotten the matter almost
entirely, if it had not been brought back to mind by this work of
writing my story. In the second part of this book, in describing
stone-printing itself, I will show various methods of making patterns
for work on cotton, such as I conceived later in Vienna where I busied
myself very much with cotton-printing.
I happened to print for Herr Lentner a little song about the great fire
of Neuötting in Bavaria and used a little vignette showing a burning
house. This induced Herr Steiner to let me etch a few small pictures for
a catechism. So far as execution of drawing goes, they were very
ordinary; but he continued to encourage me to try if the new printing
process would not be available for art work. With the exception of Herr
Andre of Offenbach, he was the only one who reasoned thus: "These
strokes and points, of such great fineness and again of such great
strength, can evidently be made on the stone, therefore it is possible
to make drawings similar to copper-plate etchings. That this cannot be
done yet is due not to a fault in the art of stone-printing, but to the
insufficient skill of the artists."
Even at that time he did not say: "The art is still in its infancy," as
many a would-be wise man does to-day, thus exposing his lack of
knowledge of the entire matter. Even at that time he was convinced, more
so even than I, that the art of stone-printing had reached its climax
when I gave him the first specimens of stone-printing improved by the
chemical process. Artists might cultivate and perfect themselves,
manipulation be simplified and processes be increased in number and
variety, but the art itself could not be improved greatly.
To be sure, when I glance hurriedly over the manifold results of the
last twenty years, all that I have done myself for perfection, the
brilliant achievements of which this book will furnish proof, I am
tempted to think for a moment that the Now and the Then cannot be
compared. But considered correctly, I had invented and discovered the
entire art at that time. Everything that I and others have done since
then are only improvements. Everything rests still on the same
principle: ink of wax, soap, etc., then gum, aqua fortis or another acid
of which none has an advantage over the others, further oil varnish and
lampblack,--these are, ever and in the same manner, the chief elements
of stone-printing as they were then. Not the slightest thing has been
changed, improved, or invented in the fundamental principle. No
illustration has been published by any lithographer containing cleaner,
stronger, or blacker lines and points than my first proofs had in part.
Therefore, those people are wrong who seek to excuse the lack of
assistance that I received in the beginning, by alleging that at the
time no one knew if the process could be used to any great extent. They
declare many productions of the present day to be far better, simply
because the illustrator is more skillful, though in truth the printing
is not so good as many of the first ones made by me. It has even
happened that the assertion has found its way into print that I had
invented only the rough part of the art, and never had been able to use
it for more than music-printing, whereas this one or that one are the
true artists, having succeeded in producing pictures.
These gentlemen, who are so quick with verdicts, should inform
themselves a little. They would discover that aside from me (with the
exception of Professor Mitterer's invention of the cylinder press),
nobody has made a noteworthy improvement in the branches of lithography
without having received it primarily or indirectly through me. Further
they would have learned that these illustrators either made their first
attempts under my personal direction, or else owe their skill to persons
whom I taught; and lastly, that none of my critics can boast of having
penetrated into the very inmost spirit of the art like only Herr Rapp of
Munich, the venerable author of the work published by Cotta, _The Secret
of Lithography_. If they learned all this, they might feel a little
ashamed. But then, they would have much to do.
Had my skill in writing and drawing on stone been greater at that time,
Herr Steiner would have given me opportunity enough and manifold. He
permitted me to do a small book, _Rules for Girls_, in German script,
which, on the whole, turned out of only average quality, as I had not
practiced this style sufficiently.
Then he wanted me to draw Biblical pictures on stone or to let others
draw them. At that time he was having Herr Schön in Augsburg etch the
Seven Holy Sacraments after Poussin. As the etching was expensive, the
impressions could not be sold for less than four kreuzer each. Herr
Steiner wished to circulate these pictures so generally that they could
serve as gifts from the country preachers to their little Christian
pupils. He wished, also, to ornament various school-books with pictures
of this kind, and thus, gradually, to replace the miserably drawn
species of saints that generally fill the prayer-books of the pious
households.
Only the utmost cheapness could make this possible, and this naturally
suggested the stone process to him. Even if the pictures were not so
fine as those etched on copper, they would serve amply if they were
correctly drawn, noble in design, and handsomely printed. It was
necessary either to draw myself and practice faithfully, or to train a
skilled artist to draw with fatty ink on stone. We preferred the latter
method and trained several young men, who produced various works,
sometimes good, sometimes inferior.
Through all this I ran more and more danger of losing my secret. Indeed,
it was lost already except perhaps so far as concerned the exact
composition of the ink. But I hoped still to obtain the privilege for
Bavaria, toward which end the Schulrath promised me his best aid, and so
I let the matter proceed, and trained the men. But among all these
young men there was not one who did not desire a substantial reward for
his very first attempts, and when they found that they were expected
first to learn, they stayed away, one by one. Herr Steiner was hurt. I,
however, was indifferent, for I was just beginning to plan to use a new
and important discovery in such a manner that my stone-printing would be
greatly improved and we could hope to carry out our idea of
illustrations without the aid of artists.
I had been assigned to write a prayer-book on stone for the Schul-fond.
It was mostly in a style of writing in which I was least expert. When I
wrote music notes, our method, proved best by experience, had been to
write the entire sheet in reverse on the stone with lead pencil to serve
as pattern. This was mostly Herr Gleissner's work, and being a musician
he had achieved great perfection. For me this preparatory work was far
less agreeable than the final execution with the stone-ink. Therefore,
as ever in my life, when a difficulty or a burden was before me, I
studied for some way to make it easier for me. Previously I had found
that if one wrote on paper with good English lead pencils, then
moistened the paper, laid it on a polished stone and passed it through a
powerful press, a good impression was the result. I had used the method
on various occasions. I wished that I possessed an ink that could be
used the same way. Trials showed that fine red chalk needed merely to be
rubbed down gently in a solution of gum, and that even the ordinary
writing-ink of nut gall and vitriol of iron would serve when mixed with
a little sugar. But this did not satisfy my ambition, which always
demanded the best and most perfect. The gum in one and the vitriol in
the other did not agree well with the stone-ink. In addition, the
impression often squashed. Therefore I tried a mixture in water of
linseed oil, soap, and lampblack which met my demands better. I had a
music-writer write notes correctly on note-paper with this ink, printed
it on the stone, and thus had an accurate pattern, which was at the same
time reversed, as was necessary.
I now planned to do this with the book. But why could I not invent an
ink that would serve on the stone without making it necessary to trace
over it with the stone-ink? Why not make an ink that would leave the
paper under pressure and transfer itself to the stone entirely? Could
one give the paper itself some property so that it would let go of the
ink under given conditions? So reflected I, and it seemed to me not
impossible. At once I began to experiment. I had observed that the
stone-ink at once began to congeal and stiffen when it came into contact
with ordinary writing-ink, because of the action of the vitriol of iron,
which devoured the alkali that the stone-ink needed to keep it in
solution. Therefore I wrote with ordinary ink, into which I put still
more vitriol of iron. After it was dry, I dipped the sheet into a weak
solution in water of my stone-ink. After a few seconds I withdrew it and
washed it very gently in rainwater. I found that the ink had fastened
itself on the written places, and pretty thickly, too. I allowed the
paper to dry slightly and transferred the writing to the stone. The
impression was fair, but not sufficiently complete. I tried it
repeatedly but could obtain no transfers that were sharp and uniform
enough to represent a handsome script. So I tried another way. I painted
the paper with gum solution in which vitriol of iron was dissolved.
After it dried I wrote on it with my ordinary stone-ink and dried it
again. Then I dampened the paper and let it lie a while to soften, after
which I transferred it to the stone, which had been treated with strong
oil varnish diluted in oil of turpentine, laid on so lightly that it was
only like the blurring from a breath.
These attempts were far more successful, but it was impossible to write
as delicately on this paper as I desired. Therefore I made new
experiments. I changed the mixture of my ink. I tried to make it more
adhesive with mixtures of resin, oil varnish, gum elastic, turpentine,
mastic, and similar substances. In short, I do not exaggerate when I
declare that this matter cost me several thousands of experiments. I was
rewarded sufficiently by succeeding. And at the same time through these
investigations I discovered the chemical printing on stone of to-day.
As the transfer from paper to stone depended mainly on the greater or
lesser powers of adhesion between one material and another, it was
natural that in my many experiments with such various ingredients I
should observe that a mucous fluid, as, for instance, the gum solution,
resisted the adhesion of the greasy ink. Nearer still to the new
invention did the following experiment bring me: I noticed that if there
happened to be a few drops of oil in the water into which I dipped paper
inscribed with my greasy stone-ink, the oil would distribute itself
evenly over all parts of the writing, whereas the rest of the paper
would take no oil, and especially so if it had been treated with gum
solution or very thin starch paste. This fact led me to investigate the
behavior of paper printed with common printing-ink.
A sheet of an old book was drawn through thin gum solution, then laid on
a stone and touched carefully everywhere with a sponge that had been
dipped into a thin oil color. The printed letters took the color well
everywhere and the paper itself remained white. Now I laid another clean
white sheet on this, put both through the press, and obtained a very
good transfer, in reverse, of course. In this manner, if I used great
care, I found I could make fifty and more transfers from the same sheet.
If I allowed such a transfer to dry thoroughly and then treated it like
the original sheet, why should it not produce transfers that are like
the original, not reversed? So thought I, and the result showed that I
had not been wrong! Only for the first transfer I needed to use a
somewhat stiffer color that had been dried more with litharge of silver,
and then to let the transfer dry for at least four or six days.
So I came to find that I could print without a stone, from the paper
alone; and this process, depending solely on chemical action, was
totally, fundamentally different from all other processes of printing.
Old books could be republished in this manner easily and without great
cost. New ones also. I needed only to invent a fatty ink, similar to the
printing-ink and drying thoroughly, and I could use every sheet of
printed paper instead of type. I invented this ink soon. Resin, finely
pulverized litharge of silver, lampblack, thick oil varnish, and potash
properly diluted with water gave me a good ink for the purpose. The only
obstacle that prevented me from using this process at once on a large
scale was the fragility of the paper, which tore into pieces under the
slightest carelessness in handling. The natural and simple thought that
was bound to come to me under the circumstances was this, Could not a
stronger material, perhaps the stone plate itself, be so prepared that
it would take ink or color only on the parts covered with fatty ink,
while the wet parts of the stone resisted it? I feared that the stone
might not absorb the grease sufficiently, and this really is the case
with many stones, such as slate, pebble, grindstone, glass, porcelain,
etc.; but experiments showed that exactly the opposite is true in the
case of the Solenhofer limestone. This stone has a great affinity for
fat, which often is absorbed so deeply that in many cases even extensive
grinding will not remove it.
I took a cleanly polished stone, inscribed it with a piece of soap,
poured thin gum solution over it and passed over all with a sponge
dipped in oil color. All the places marked with the fat became black at
once, the rest remained white. I could make as many impressions as I
pleased; simply wetting the stone after each impression and treating it
again with the sponge produced the same result each time. The
impressions became somewhat pale, because the color on the sponge was
too thin; but I obtained perfectly black and handsome impressions as
soon as I used an ink roller of leather stuffed with horse-hair.
I hurried to write a sheet of note music at once to print it in the new
way; but the ink flowed too much on the polished stone. Previously I had
corrected this by rubbing the stone with linseed oil or soap-water,
which checked the trouble entirely. But I knew that I could not do that
in this new method, because then the stone would have a coating of
grease all over, and would take color on the entire surface. However, I
was able to take this coating away after writing, by etching with aqua
fortis, though etching would not have been necessary otherwise in this
chemical form of printing. However, it was easy to see that a drawing
etched into relief would be easier to print from than one not etched at
all. It did not require much etching, and I saved a great deal of acid,
while the stone, also, remained useful for new work for a much longer
period. Therefore, without making further experiments, I adhered to my
old method, first washing the stone lightly with soap-water, drying it
well, writing on it with wax ink, and then etching with acid before I
finished it for printing by pouring gum solution over it.
At first I imagined that I might do without the gum entirely; but I
found soon that it really formed a sort of chemical union with the
stone, making its pores more receptive to the grease and closing them
more effectively against water. I found also that neither aqua fortis
nor gum was so valuable alone as when both were used in the process.
I needed to make only a few more experiments to obtain the proper
consistency of ink, and the new process would be practically perfect so
far as the fundamental principle was concerned. And, in fact, I made
such handsome, clean, and strong impressions after three days of trial
that few better ones have been made since. Now it was necessary merely
to train skillful workmen and artists as quickly as possible for this
new art, that was susceptible of innumerable valuable uses, as I could
see at once.
It made no difference now whether the design was worked in relief or
intaglio, as good impressions could be obtained even when the drawing
was perfectly level with the surface of the stone. But all three methods
could be combined on one stone, if desired. If I reversed the method, by
rubbing oil over the stone instead of water, while for printing I used
an ink prepared with gum solution (of which I will describe the best
composition afterward), then the greasy places would resist color while
the wet ones took it, and thus I could print with all water colors, and
this is necessary sometimes with colored pictures because of the greater
height of the colors. The inscription with dry soap gave me the logical
idea toward crayon work, which I used afterward. My previous experiments
with etching, that recurred to my memory, now assumed entirely different
aspects and I could understand many things that had puzzled me then.
It was a simple step now to the etched method, in which the stone is
prepared first with aqua fortis and gum, after which the design is
engraved in intaglio without first being treated with aqua fortis.
Indeed, this method was used for the first work that I undertook.
A piece of music by Herr Gleissner (which afterward was greatly praised
in the musical paper) had been completed before I invented the new
process. Only the title-page remained to do. As I wished to make this as
handsome as possible, since Herr Gleissner intended to dedicate the work
to Count von Törring, I chose this new intaglio style, because I hoped
to do my best work in it. Any one who still possesses a copy of this
symphony can see by slight examination that the printing was done from
an etched engraving. Therefore Herr Rapp in Stuttgart is mistaken when
he assumes that he is the first who treated the stone in this manner. As
early as the year 1800 I deposited in the archives of the Patent Office
in London a full description of this and several other methods, some of
which have not been used yet generally, and in 1803 I had to submit my
descriptions to the Austrian Government when they gave me a franchise.
A year before this, I had invented the lever press, with which I could
make several thousand of the handsomest impressions during a day. This,
combined with the new treatment of the stone, enabled me to enlarge my
operations greatly. I took in two of my brothers, Theobald and George,
who had been in the theatre hitherto, and taught them to write and etch
on stone. Also I took in two boy apprentices, sons of poor parents, to
train them properly. Herr Schulrath Steiner and Herr Falter, with
several others, gave me various orders, and a pretty good outlook began
to appear for me and Herr Gleissner.
Until now we had been forced to suffer much grief, disappointment,
deprivation, and poverty. Herr Gleissner's salary was only three hundred
gulden a year. A yearly deduction of one hundred gulden was being made
from this by the Government to pay debts. Then there were new expenses
to repair the printery and keep it in some sort of order. My support and
that of the family Gleissner,--which consisted of five persons,--then a
larger residence, on account of the room needed for stones and for
printing, also had to be paid for. My own yearly earnings were barely a
few hundred gulden, as most of my time was used for experiments. It is
no wonder, then, that during this sad period of two years, we spent
almost all that could be spent of Herr Gleissner's estate, and still
made new debts, despite all imaginable economies.
I can say for the honor of this man, and especially his wife, that,
despite all their losses and despite the warnings and inciting of their
friends and relatives, they remained unshaken, and by making all kinds
of sacrifices they enabled me to win at last. On my part they saw
faithful and eager will, and a restless endeavor that went so far that I
hardly took any time for eating or sleeping, but thought only of
improving my art.
Now, however, our condition was changed at once. Many days we earned as
much as ten to twelve gulden; and at the same time we received an
exclusive franchise for fifteen years through the favor of King
Maximilian Joseph, who began his glorious reign then. This privilege
gave us the right to print and sell exclusively in all of Bavaria, while
infringers were liable to a fine of one hundred gulden and confiscation
of all stock and apparatus.
We were determined to do our utmost, to work day and night, to establish
an honorable reputation for our printery at last, though we foresaw many
obstacles, owing to the entire lack of assistance. Already I had
half-determined to contract with the Schul-fond, permitting it to
establish a lithographic press for its own use, when an accidental
circumstance gave our whole undertaking a new direction.
Depending on the protection given to us by our franchise, we were making
no further secret of any part of our process. We were quite content with
having the monopoly in Bavaria, and cared little that other printeries
might arise in other countries. Indeed, this expectation flattered my
vanity as inventor, and I thought that in time I might make commercial
connections with such establishments. For this reason I was very
hospitable toward every stranger who came to visit us. I hoped that
perhaps I might induce some such visitor to participate in our
undertaking, and therefore I exhibited all the advantages of the process
and permitted them to see the manipulations with their own eyes.
Just then Herr Andre of Offenbach visited Munich on business. He read
about the grant of our franchise and asked his friend Falter about the
process. That gentleman showed him some sheets of music printed by us
and offered to introduce him to our printery, where, as technical
expert, he could decide for himself as to the value or worthlessness of
the new art.
Herr Andre, who possessed an extensive musical publishing institution
and owned a large zinc-plate printing-plant, was delighted with the
beauty of our print, and was especially impressed by the fact that the
color did not off-set when rubbed with the hand, as was the case with
zinc printing. He accepted Herr Falter's offer at once and was
introduced as a merchant. The attention with which he noted even the
slightest operations led me to conclude at once that this man had some
especial interest in printing. I took particular pains to display the
whole process to the best advantage.
Several plates that were already inscribed were etched and printed with
beautiful results. The speed (seventy-five sheets in a quarter-hour, two
being printed simultaneously each time), the quickness of drying, the
economy in color, were things that increased his interest to a high
pitch. He told who he was and proposed to me that I teach him the entire
art for an adequate remuneration. I accepted at once and agreed to go to
Offenbach within a few months, erect a press, and train men in all
branches of the process. For this he promised me the sum of two thousand
gulden, of which he paid down three hundred gulden on the spot.
This change from poverty to comfort made me happy mainly on Herr
Gleissner's account. We could furnish our printery properly now and pay
our old debts. We were assured, also, of enough work to permit
enlargement of the establishment in future. What was there left to wish?
In the very beginning, however, the behavior of my own family gave me
great displeasure. My mother demanded that I share my profit with my
brothers, as they had a better right than Herr Gleissner and his family.
I could not quite see this; therefore my mother ordered a press for my
brothers and bought the necessary stones. They went to Herr Falter and
asked him for his work, representing that I had made my fortune through
Herr Andre, whereas they were unprovided for. They offered at the same
time to furnish each plate for thirty kreuzer less than I charged. Herr
Falter permitted himself to be convinced, and when Madame Gleissner
discovered it she was intensely angry, and did not rest till the
Government ordered my brothers to refrain from utilizing the process in
Bavaria for their own account.
My brothers went to Augsburg to erect a stone-press for Herr Gombart.
They must have been unequal to the attempt or there must have been other
difficulties: in brief, I know only that, after Herr Gombart had
incurred many useless expenses, he discarded printing from stone.
During the three months before my journey to Offenbach I practiced my
art busily, and especially studied to attain thoroughness in one branch
that was of importance to Herr Schulrath Steiner. I have spoken already
of his idea for pictures for children. As soon as I had invented the new
chemical printing, I thought of inking an etched copper plate with a
composition of tallow, soap, lampblack, and oil varnish, making an
impression, laying this on stone, and putting it through the press. The
picture transferred itself to the stone as I had expected. Then I poured
the water and gum solution over it and inked it with the ink roller. The
design took the color well; and thus, if the stone was very clean in the
beginning and the proof from the copper had been made very carefully
indeed, I could print several thousands of copies which resembled the
original so closely that only a slightly greater degree of sharpness,
clearness, and strength gave the copper etching an advantage over the
stone impressions. At last I succeeded in perfecting the process so that
actually my best impressions from the stone were better than those that
had been made with less care from the original copper plate.
The main requisite in this process was that the ink be firm enough not
to spread in printing, and still so greasy and tender that the very
finest lines would come out. The copper plate had to be washed with
extraordinary care, for the least bit of grease that should off-set on
the white paper would, of course, transfer itself to the stone and make
that part take color.
This latter circumstance was intensely difficult to overcome. It
occurred to me to treat the copper plate chemically, like the stone, so
that its surface would resist the ink. I succeeded, as, in future, I
succeeded with other metals. The fundamental principle in each case
remained the same. Only in the choice of materials for each metal was
there a difference. I discovered soon that there are two kinds of
preparations, one acid and one alkaline, for all solid bodies which have
the property of taking and absorbing oil colors. The alkalines seemed to
be best for use on copper plate, and I obtained such clean impressions
that the stone did not take on even a vestige of ink in any spot except
the design. At the same time I found that chemical printing does not
limit itself to stone, but can be done on wood and metal, as well as on
paper, as stated already. Yes, though apparently it is incredible--even
fats, such as wax, shellac, resin, etc., can acquire the attribute,
under certain circumstances, of resisting color, and, therefore, are
available for chemical printing. This fact gave me hopes of discovering
a sort of artificial stone some day, which might be less costly, less
massive, and less fragile; and, as a matter of fact, I succeeded in
inventing an artificial stone-paper in 1813, a stony mass that is
smeared on paper or linen and looks somewhat like parchment.
Since the illustrations on etched copper plates were so readily
transferable to the stone, Herr Schulrath Steiner could now let the best
masters etch his pictures. The sales of the original impressions as
works of art always covered the costs. He paid me five gulden for each
transfer that I made from the copper to stone. For this extremely small
sum he obtained a stone plate from which there could be made countless
impressions, which, although not so fine as those from the copper,
answered his purpose of circulating good pictures by making them
extremely cheap. Lively prosecution of this process was prevented only
by the delays of copper etchers, so that we were able to utilize it only
five times on a large scale before I had to leave Munich.
Herr Gleissner, who wished to visit a friend in Frankfurt, accompanied
me on my way to Offenbach. I started at once on the new work and within
fourteen days I pulled the first proof on Herr Andre's own press. He was
so well satisfied, and, besides, had so thoroughly considered the
advantages of stone-printing, that he proposed to me to leave Munich
entirely and, with him as associate, extend the art in the best possible
way. He had three brothers, none of whom was engaged in a fixed
occupation. He intended to bring these into the partnership. Two were
in London, the youngest and the eldest. The latter was to return soon.
One brother had lived long in Paris, and was well acquainted with that
city as well as with French affairs. So he laid out the following plan.
We would try to obtain exclusive franchises in Paris, London, Berlin,
and Vienna. Then a stone-printery and art publication house was to be
opened in each city. His brothers should manage affairs, one each in
London, Paris, and Berlin, while I was to take the management in Vienna.
Offenbach and Frankfurt would remain under Herr Andre's management and
be the centre of control and union.
The plan seemed to be easy to realize, as there was no lack of means. I
could look for one fifth of the profits which would be earned by the
combined, very considerable capital of the Andre family. In addition,
Herr Andre possessed all the requisite knowledge and owned a great
business already. Therefore I agreed gladly, after making the condition
that Herr Gleissner was to remain a partner of mine and receive a decent
remuneration till the business was in working order.
Herr Andre was well content, for Herr Gleissner could be used as
compositor, corrector, and writer in the business, which was to consist
largely of music publication in the beginning.
Herr Gleissner and I returned to Munich to arrange our affairs there. He
intended to ask for three years' leave of absence. I planned, in order
to save Herr Steiner any embarrassment, and also to maintain our
privilege in Bavaria, since one could not tell how the Andre undertaking
might turn out, to so arrange that our work could be printed properly
during our absence, whether done by the Schul-fond, the Government, or
private persons. It gratified me also to have an opportunity to satisfy
my mother's wishes in regard to my brothers; and I gave my brothers,
Theobald and George, my press, my stones, and everything else that was
on hand, also the two trained apprentices, and only stipulated for
myself that I should have one fourth of the net profits, leaving the
accounting entirely to their sense of honor. They promised to keep
accurate books and work steadily and economically, and they received
from me minute instructions about transferring from the copper for Herr
Steiner. I taught them also how to handle the crayon process, which
promised an early harvest.
As soon as all was done I went to Offenbach with the whole Gleissner
family. A good quantity of stones had arrived there, and a few men,
previously trained, had been practicing in transcribing music. We were
able to begin on a large scale at once. Herr Andre had ten copper- and
zinc-plate presses at work. He stopped five and used the workmen for
stone-printing. He went to London, partly for business, partly to get
his youngest brother and to inform himself thoroughly about the
procedure necessary to obtain English patents.
One of our chief speculations in England was to be the application of
stone-printing to cotton. Once, when Herr Steiner conceived the idea of
illuminating pictures with stencils in the way used by card-makers, I
had made many experiments in that line. I cut out the parts to be
colored in oil-soaked paper, laid this on the picture, and passed a
roller over it with the desired color. The color was more even than with
a brush, but not everything could be cut out, because the stencils had
to have the necessary connection. Therefore I needed two stencils for
every color shade. Again, these thin stencils easily slipped out of
place, a defect that displeased me. Now, it happened that at times when
I was a little careless, the whole stencil would roll itself up on the
ink-roller. I found that it was possible to work even more surely when
this happened, provided one found the exact beginning of the stencil and
applied it minutely. But it was not possible to make more than twelve
impressions. Then the stencil had to be taken from the roller that the
latter might be inked again.
In this work the stencil paper often tore. To overcome this there was
only one remedy, which was to make the roller hollow and feed it with
color from inside. I did not have the time to try this and worked out
another plan. I cut out the places to be colored in felt or leather,
applied paste to their obverse sides, laid them face down on the exact
parts of the picture which were to be colored, rolled a perfectly round
roller over them, and the pieces adhered to the roller in their right
places. Then the roller was inked with the required color, and of course
took it only in the elevated parts. At both ends the roller had a strip
of leather of the same thickness as the cut-outs, thus making it certain
that it would not touch the ink except in the proper places. In this way
pictures could be illuminated very quickly, and several shades of color
could be obtained if the pieces were of different qualities of leather,
or of leather, cloth, and cotton, according to the shades desired. A
very moderate pressure sufficed for good and even work.
What could be more natural than that I should deduce that this sort of
printing might be utilized for cotton? Once inked, the roller was good
for ten to twelve impressions, if the operator merely used a little more
pressure as he proceeded. I saw also that the roller could easily be
colored by attaching another to revolve with it and convey the ink. That
would give us a form of cotton-printing that would proceed
automatically.
The idea was too important to be left untried. I took a little roller,
two inches in diameter and six inches long. I glued a piece of calfskin
completely around it and then cut a design into it. Then this roller was
so adjusted with relation to another of exactly the same dimensions that
both touched perfectly. On this second one, which was to convey the
color to the other, there rested a little box without a bottom, so that
the roller itself represented the bottom as soon as the box was pressed
on it, which was most easily done with two screws. The color was poured
into this box. Now when the lower roller was passed over linen or cotton
which was stretched on an evenly planed board with an under layer of
cloth, a continuous print was obtained, without off-set, and with such
celerity that it could be reckoned easily that with this process several
thousand yards a day could be produced.
When I invented the chemical printing afterward, I held that a stone
roller could be used for this work as well as a wooden one. I had too
little knowledge of the industry at that time and believed that cotton
print was done with oil-colors; for I thought that water-colors would
wash out. I was a complete stranger to this work. Therefore, I drew a
pretty cotton pattern on a stone plate and printed from it with oil
varnish and finely pulverized indigo. The impressions turned out very
handsome, so that I considered the matter settled and made no further
experiments. I imparted this idea to Herr Andre, who saw its importance
at once and determined to obtain a patent for it specially.
However, we had much to learn. As soon as he arrived in England he
discovered that rollers with the design on them were in general use in
England. So I had imagined mistakenly that my invention was new.
However, printing from stone was in itself valuable for a patent, but
Herr Andre unfortunately received the incorrect information that the
inventor himself must appear in England, and he decided to send me
there. I did not care to go; firstly, because I was vexed at the failure
of my hopes in regard to cotton-printing; and secondly, because I wished
to go to Vienna. However, I yielded to his representations, and within a
few weeks journeyed to London with one of his brothers who spoke
English.
We went through Hamburg to Cuxhafen and thence in an English packet-boat
to Yarmouth, where we landed after a six days' stormy passage.
My sojourn in London did not achieve its purpose, which was to establish
printing from stone. The exaggerated caution and precision of Herr
Philip Andre, who had been named as the man who was to manage the London
negotiations, caused a waste of seven months, during which nothing was
done to reach our object.
We lived with Herr Philip and he kept me at home most of the time, for
fear that I might betray our purpose, in which case some speculative
spirit might take out a patent before us and then compel us to buy him
off for some heavy sum. He did not reflect that a mere declaration is
not sufficient in England, but that an exact description of a process
must be deposited with the Patent Office.
As he could have rendered all these fears unnecessary by simply taking
out the patent, I could not understand why he delayed from month to
month, and at last I voiced my suspicion that he was not honest with me
and had some unknown designs. I declared that nothing would keep me
longer in England, which had become wearisome to me owing to my constant
seclusion; and my suspicions were increased by the entire lack of all
news from the Gleissners and from my family. When Herr Philip Andre
realized that I could be held back no longer, he went to work at last,
and in twelve days we had the patent in our hands. As I had trained Herr
Philip already in the art of stone-work, there was nothing to keep me
longer, and I began my homeward voyage at once with my former companion,
Herr Friedrich Andre.
My seven months' sojourn in London had the following results for myself
and for lithography:--
First, I had decided in Offenbach to use my spare time entirely for the
study of chemistry. Particularly did I want to learn everything that was
known about color, that I might use stone for cotton-printing. I bought
the best books and worked steadily, testing the teachings by experiment.
Second, I made many experiments with stone-ink, to find the very best
composition. The ingredients which I utilized in course of the time were
about as follows:--
Soap--_a_, common tallow soaps; _b_, Venetian soap.
B, wax.
C, tallow, butter, and other animal fats.
D, spermaceti.
E, shellac.
F, resins and Venetian turpentine.
G, gum elastic.
H, linseed oil.
I, the fat contained in chocolate.
L, various resinous products, such as mastic, copal, dragon's
blood, gum elemi, quajac pensoe, etc.
Then I used various solvents besides the soap, such as--
M, vegetable alkalies, among them tartaric acid.
N, similar mineral alkalies.
O, animal lyes, spirits of sal ammoniac, and sal volatile with
spirits of ammonia.
P, borax.
Q, various metallic solutions.
It is evident that with these substances an endless number of
experiments can be made, not to count the variety of proportions.
Certainly it is not exaggeration when I say that during that time and
later I made many thousands of experiments, only to confirm my
experience that accidentally I had discovered the best compositions
during the first twenty or thirty investigations, and that my time after
that had been wasted, unless I counted the knowledge I had gained of
chemistry.
Thirdly, I made my first attempts at that time in the aqua-tint style,
and also practiced printing with several plates, which I had begun
previously under suggestion of Herr Steiner. The son of the Swiss
idyllic poet, Gessner, was in London at that time and was a good friend
of Herr Philip. He made some neat sketches for us in the crayon process,
which I had invented in Munich immediately after my invention of
chemical printing. I had exhibited the process to Professor Mitterer at
that time, and he thought that it might become valuable for art.
Thus my residence in London was not unimportant for lithography. The
complete lack of disturbance, the adequacy of all needed material,
enabled me to discover more than I might have learned in Offenbach. I
left England with a certain satisfaction, gained from the certainty that
I had raised my art to a high degree of perfection.
I am satisfied even to this day that the world would have many
masterpieces as the result, had I come into contact at that time with an
enterprising art publisher who would have engaged the needed artists and
undertaken interesting works. As it was, however, and as I shall show,
circumstances forced me into untoward positions, so that little or no
opportunity was left me to use my knowledge practically and in an
important way.
Immediately on my arrival in Offenbach, I received the displeasing news
that Herr Andre had sent Madame Gleissner to Vienna to claim the
exclusive franchise for the new printing process, and to enter lawsuit
against my mother, who had gone to Vienna with the same purpose.
The reason for this was as follows: My two brothers, Theobald and
George, who could not earn enough in Munich, had been engaged as
lithographers by Herr Andre in Offenbach on my request. In a
confidential mood I told them that I hoped to go to Vienna and open a
great printing establishment and art publication house with assistance
of Herr Andre, and that this establishment should make my fortune as
well as that of my family.
Probably they did not believe my promise, or they did not care to depend
on my fraternal feeling for something which they believed they could get
for themselves: enough, they wrote to my mother that it was unfair to
let Herr Andre become exclusive proprietor of the new process
everywhere, and as I was well established in London anyway, she would
better travel to Vienna and ask for a franchise. They sent her several
good proofs from the Andre press.
Would to Heaven this plan of theirs had succeeded! I should have been
spared many a succeeding sorrow, and I would have been glad for their
sakes. The world was large enough for me, and certainly it was not
thoroughly fair that they, the nearest relatives of the inventor, should
be shut out by the far-reaching plans of Herr Andre to obtain exclusive
franchises everywhere. To be sure, I had told them that I would give
them the Bavarian franchise; but as they had enjoyed it for several
months with little profit, this did not seem to them a tempting
equivalent.
The news of my mother's journey to Vienna had been brought to Madame
Gleissner quite accidentally, and it made her almost frantic.
When she used to charge me with depending so completely on Herr Andre's
promises, without possessing anything in writing, I used to comfort her
by pointing out his righteous character, and also by reminding her that
it was all agreed that I and Herr Gleissner should undertake the
printery in Vienna as part of the general enterprise, and that we were
to obtain the necessary advance funds as soon as I returned from
England. The repeated complaints that she made, many of them in the
presence of my brothers, possibly helped to give them the idea of trying
themselves for a franchise in Austria. They may have thought, "If our
brother is careless enough to depend on empty words, we will be wise
enough to obtain a certainty. It remains open to us always to share our
fortune with the inventor."
Madame Gleissner had entertained great hopes about living in splendid
Vienna and having means enough to take part in its brilliant life. This
made the news about my mother's errand all the more irritating. She did
not consider that an Imperial franchise is not easily obtained by women
who are not even well informed on the case at issue. She succeeded in
imparting her fears to Herr Andre, and as he himself was prevented from
going, he entered into her fool's counsel to send her to Vienna at once.
She had strong hopes of success, because as a matter of fact the
Bavarian franchise had been obtained entirely through her efforts, and
she also calculated that the Austrian Government would pay more heed to
the inventor himself than to his brothers, who could not equal his
attainments.
Herr Andre had kept it all, even to the journey of Madame Gleissner, a
secret from me, presumably because he wanted to save me annoyance and
also to prevent my hasty return from England.
Unfortunately I had conceived some suspicions in England, and these were
increased when I received this unexpected news on my arrival in
Offenbach. What was worse, Herr Gleissner gave me a letter from his
wife, in which she adjured me to hurry to Vienna with all speed, as
Andre was planning to deceive me and set me aside as a mere tool as soon
as I had founded his own fortune.
This letter, which contained no evidence but only lamentations, was
accompanied by another from her landlord in Vienna, a very reputable
merchant. It seemed to bear her out, for he warned me in it to be
cautious in my relations with Andre and to hurry to Vienna if I wished
to obtain the franchise, which could not escape me as a most influential
man had come to our support and it depended merely on the evidence to be
furnished by me.
Greatly as my suspicions were increased by this, I hoped that everything
was due merely to misunderstanding, and I proposed to Herr Andre to let
me go to Vienna, where I would inform myself thoroughly and make strong
efforts to obtain the franchise. He denied my request, saying that there
was nothing more to do in Vienna, as the Government had turned both
women away, and the whole plan was spoiled as the whole art and
copper-etching trade had become apprehensive and was united in
opposition to the new process. He said that I should rather go quickly
to work to transfer his music from zinc plates to the stone, because he
had an excellent opportunity to sell his entire stock of zincs, which
would give us a new capital of forty thousand gulden for the greater
enterprises.
I realized the good sense of this, but would not admit that a delay of
three or four weeks could interfere with it, as the entire transfers
could not be completed in less than a year, and the slight delay,
therefore, could be made up by additional work or by engaging a few more
assistants. I insisted on my demand, all the more as I had spent seven
months in England on his account. In the heat of the succeeding dispute
he reminded me of the helpless position in which he had found me, and
said that as partner in his business, I owed him all my present fortune.
Conscious as I was of my honest intention to help him to the best of my
ability, and also of the unbounded trustfulness with which I had
imparted to him far more than was called for in our contract, I was so
deeply hurt that I forgot myself and tore up our agreement, which had
been signed only the day before and which assured for me one fifth of
all profits of the Andre business. I threw the pieces down with the
exclamation that I did not wish to make my fortune through his means.
This was one of the most important moments in my life, and in the
process of lithography. It gave my work an entirely new direction,
hurled me into a mass of troubles, and brought it about that Herr Andre
himself did not gain anything like the expected profits from the new
art. Indeed, he lost heavily in London and France, whereas, had we
remained together, lithography might now be highly perfected in both
these countries and produce no small wealth for its users.
When Andre saw that I was determined to go to Vienna, he yielded, but
assured me that I would go in vain and achieve no result.
The lawsuit between Madame Gleissner and my mother, which Herr Andre
considered the greatest obstacle in his way, still continued; and in
order to get it out of the way once and for all, I took my brothers,
George and Theobald, who had been dismissed by Herr Andre, to Vienna
with me to combine with me. Andre told me afterward, after our
relations had reached final rupture, that this act had annoyed him most,
and that it was the main reason for giving up all dealings with me,
because it was inconceivable to him how any one, without the utmost
weakness of character, could forgive such treachery as theirs. He did
not reflect that I, who knew selfishness only by name, had not felt
their affront so keenly, and that my brotherly affection excused it and
made me trust that it never had been their intention to shut me out
entirely from any gains they might make.
PART II
FROM 1800 TO 1806
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 Austrian Government had been
delayed too long for her patience. She assured me that when she
petitioned for the privilege she had named not only my brothers but me,
too, and had asked it for us three.
This assurance gave me great joy, and I determined absolutely to urge
Madame Gleissner to accept my brothers as partners. I thought that if we
three worked industriously and unitedly, we would succeed much better
and more quickly. I entered Vienna with excellent hopes, based mostly on
a letter from Madame Gleissner, saying that the influential man who was
interested in our cause had promised to advance us six thousand gulden.
But these fine things retired into dark shadows when I learned, in my
first conversation with her, that all these promises were made dependent
on conditions.
The whole understanding rested on the following: Madame Gleissner lodged
with a prominent family. Andre himself had told her that she was to live
well and exhibit no lack of money, because she was much more likely to
obtain the franchise if the Government were led to expect that it would
bring wealthy people into the country. Therefore Madame Gleissner
considered it necessary to take part in all amusements and fashions of
her hosts. Her monthly expenditures were beyond the sum considered
necessary by Herr Andre's friend in Vienna, who had been authorized to
pay her an allowance. Friendly solicitude caused him to write to
Offenbach that Madame Gleissner knew nothing of economy, and that it was
to be feared if the franchise were not granted in Herr Andre's name, he
would have too little power to check her extravagance in the future. He
added that judging from her utterances and her present behavior, with
the franchise still in question, it was only too likely that she
intended to spend Herr Andre's money for show and society instead of for
the business.
Therefore, he advised that, unless Andre was sure that Senefelder had
enough character to oppose her with the necessary firmness, we be
treated solely as subordinates and thus be prevented from using his
credit to his loss.
Well meant as this counsel was, it simply furnishes an addition to the
thousands of cases where exaggerated timidity, coupled with secrecy,
does more harm than good.
Andre knew my intense gratitude to Herr Gleissner and his family, and he
suspected that I would always live in a certain dependence on them and
would pay little attention to their financial doings. The Gleissners had
awakened a fear of their extravagance in him before this time. He knew,
for instance, that I had kept little of the money he had paid me for the
secret of our process, but had turned almost all over to them. Again, he
had granted us the sum of one thousand six hundred gulden for our
support in Offenbach until the business should be in operation. Of this
Herr Gleissner was to draw six hundred gulden and I one thousand gulden.
I was a bachelor and did not need so much as a family. Therefore I
reversed this, and gave Herr Gleissner one thousand gulden, keeping six
hundred for myself. But the latter also went into the Gleissner
treasury, because Herr Andre, who had come to like me very much, made me
live in his house and eat with him. He even kept a horse for me, that I
might have the exercise necessary for my health, and if he bought
himself a new article of dress I was sure to get one like it; and I had
to take part in all the amusements of his home, though many times I
would rather have worked.
Thus I had absolutely no needs and did not require money. All the more
did Madame Gleissner require. She strained everything to be very elegant
and could not get along with the money she received, but asked for
further, quite considerable advances while I was in London, and Herr
Andre granted these willingly through friendship for me.
Therefore Andre's suspicions seemed well founded; and as in his heart he
was firmly determined to treat me as a brother, he believed that a mere
outward formality and my hitherto quite unknown name would make no real
difference, but rather that the Vienna undertaking would benefit if it
had his own well-known name and excellent credit at its head in the very
beginning.
So he wrote to his friend in Vienna that he agreed with him, and he gave
authority to him to act as he thought best for the mutual good.
This gentleman told Madame Gleissner at once that Herr Andre had decided
to ask for the franchise in his own name to give value to the
undertaking, and that she was to appear before court and declare that
she withdrew her petition and turned it over to him. She suspected a
trick and refused. A dispute followed, and there came rebukes for her
heavy expenditures. The climax was reached with the threat that, if she
insisted on her refusal, Herr Andre would cease from that moment to let
her have any money and would let her support herself.
This last, which Madame Gleissner wrote me in a very bitter letter,
outraged me; for I held it cruel to send a woman to a strange city where
she had no relatives or friends, and then to tell her: "Now do my will,
or I will leave it to bitter necessity and your own helplessness to tame
you." To be sure, it was only a threat, and surely it never lay in Herr
Andre's mind. His friend never ceased to give her money. But the harm
had been done.
Madame Gleissner appeared at her host's table with signs of tears that
aroused the sympathy of her host, Herr von Bogner, a most worthy and
reputable merchant. She told him everything, complained bitterly about
my gullibility, and generally painted everything in such colors that
Herr Bogner could not well help thinking that Herr Andre did not
consider promises any too sincerely. It was only then that he learned
Madame Gleissner's business and was told that the new art promised a
great profit.
Herr Andre's far-reaching plans for foreign exploitation seemed to him
to confirm what she said. Herr Bogner thought that Herr Andre would not
invest so much money if stone-print were not a valuable invention, and
he asked Madame Gleissner, point-blank: "Why do you need Herr Andre at
all? Try to obtain the Austrian franchise for yourself, and then, if you
choose, you can take him into the company. Then he will be obligated to
you and will have to meet your wishes, whereas now the reverse is the
case."
Madame Gleissner interposed that Herr Andre had the capital necessary
for establishing the process on a large scale, to which Herr Bogner
responded that it was better to begin modestly. "A good thing," said he,
"grows of itself. And you must not imagine that we here in Austria have
no appreciation of useful inventions and undertakings. There are many
who will assist the arts and industries. There is even a special fund
from which as much as one thousand gulden may be advanced to develop an
invention that has proved itself to be of merit. I myself might not be
disinclined to become a partner after I have examined the matter
properly; also I can recommend a very enterprising, active man, who has
much weight with the Ministers and even with His Majesty the Emperor,
and who has obtained exclusive franchises for others. He is named von
Hartl, is Imperial Court Agent, and is a very sensible and honorable
man, who will surely tell you at once whether or not anything can be
done here with the process."
Herr von Bogner kept his promise, and introduced Madame Gleissner the
very next day to Herr von Hartl. She explained our relations with Andre
and described the new invention, wherein, to be sure, she did not fail
to boast of its advantages and beauties. Among other specimens she
produced a piece of cotton which I had printed in Offenbach.
This was very pretty, the print being so sharp and clear that it seemed
to exceed the best English work. It happened that just then a great
company with a capital of one and one half million gulden had been
formed by Herr von Hartl to introduce English machine-spinning in
Austria. They had secured a very skillful English mechanic named
Thornton, who had been under contract to erect similar machines for a
Hamburg merchant. They had paid a great sum to have him released from
this contract, had bought his machines, and had done enough sample work
so that it had been resolved to push the enterprise through even if
several more millions were needed. The chief objection that was urged at
that time was that an adequate sale of the products was doubtful because
of the widespread business that the English controlled. The reply was
that they must seek to work up a great part of their product
themselves,--that is, combine with their spinnery the industries of
weaving, dyeing, and cotton-printing.
As soon as Herr von Hartl heard that the new invention promised great
advantages for cotton-printing, he pledged himself to lay the matter
before His Majesty at once, and he promised that if I would come to
Vienna and produce the necessary proofs he would surely get the
exclusive franchise for me. Furthermore, when Madame Gleissner told him,
in reply to a question, that we would need about six thousand gulden in
the beginning, he announced his readiness to furnish that sum himself if
I could convince him that a real benefit was to be produced by the new
art.
Madame Gleissner wrote to me, but withheld the condition of Herr von
Hartl that I must convince him. I would have taken care not to give such
greedy heed to her, for I knew from experience how difficult it is to
convince most people. But, I was determined to show my friend Andre that
I and my art were by no means at a loss without him. Besides, I always
had the royal Bavarian franchise to fall back on. His secrecy had shaken
my confidence, and I was determined to find out everything for myself.
Many years later, when I reviewed everything calmly, I was sufficiently
convinced that Herr Andre always had meant honestly by me; and I count
myself fortunate to have him still as my friend. But at that time
various misunderstandings brought it about that he did not give me full
knowledge of everything, before he took steps contrary to our agreement
and without my cognizance that could not fail to impress me as strange,
since I was ignorant of the circumstances. Besides, he defended himself
against my accusations in a manner that affronted my vanity deeply, for
he gave me to understand plainly that my past weakness in the matter of
the Gleissners' extravagance proved that I should always have to dance
to their tune. It angered me that he should turn against me, as
weakness, my recognition of the patient faithfulness of the Gleissners
through the many sorrows that had overwhelmed us since the beginning of
the process; and the more so as I was giving them merely that which I
did not require and which was my own undisputed property. According to
that, I would have earned the reputation of being a firm, strong man had
I used my superfluous earnings to buy a few watches, a ring, or some
garments, rather than to use it to pay a debt of gratitude! Besides,
whatever Herr Andre had advanced to them was something that had been
done without my knowledge; therefore I accounted all his charges as
being only empty words, used to cover a proposed piece of trickery.
After my first conversation with Madame Gleissner, but more especially
with Herr Andre's representative in Vienna, I realized that the latter
could not be censured for his measures of prudence, and I repented that
I had so easily given way to my quick sensitiveness. The _franchise_
evidently was very uncertain. The only hope for it lay in the assistance
of Herr von Hartl, and, therefore, depended on my ability to convince
him. I had spent my money traveling, and instead of finding Madame
Gleissner in funds, as I had assumed from her letter, I found her ill
with only a few guldens, and in addition I had two brothers on my hands
who also were penniless and looked to me for their support.
Madame Gleissner assured me that Herr von Hartl would assist us and that
I could reckon also on help from her host, who had counseled her to part
from Herr Andre and seek the privilege for herself. I mustered up
sufficient courage to explain our situation to the latter gentleman and
to ask him if we could count on his help for the beginning. This request
must have been unexpected by Herr von Bogner, as Madame Gleissner's
manner of living had indicated anything rather than lack of wealth.
However, he liked my frankness, and promised active aid. He gave me a
handsome room, and I and Madame Gleissner ate at his own table. He paid,
also, for the lodging of my brothers in another house.
Two days after our arrival, I and my brothers visited Herr von Hartl in
his country residence in Dornbach. We were received most kindly, and he
promised me his aid if I could give satisfactory proofs. So far as the
franchise was concerned, however, he showed me that it could be taken
out only in my name, and this, he explained, would be difficult enough,
as all the art dealers were against it. To ask for it in the name of
three brothers was out of the question. Neither, said he, would it be
necessary, as I could make a separate contract with them through which
they could be partners with me.
Herr von Hartl, who, as Court Agent, naturally knew all that was to be
done, would not have said this without good reason. My brothers,
however, were highly incensed, and declared that they would not be
dependent on me, but would be their own masters. Had they possessed the
money necessary to travel they would, no doubt, have carried out this
resolve at once, for they had been angered already by the fact that Herr
von Bogner kept only me as his guest. My representations were without
effect. They told me that they would return to Munich and practice the
Bavarian privilege in my name if Herr von Hartl would give them the
journey money; otherwise they would be forced to listen to the
proposition of several Viennese art dealers and sell them the secret of
the stone-printing art.
As this would have destroyed all chance for getting an exclusive
privilege, Herr von Hartl gave them the money, and Theobald and George
Senefelder returned to Munich, after making a contract with me which
permitted them to establish a printing business and, if possible, an art
business, my share in which was to be one third of the net profit after
deducting the cost of their own support. This contract was necessary to
authorize them to practice under my privilege.
Meantime I had a small hand-press made and produced several pieces of
work for Herr von Hartl, which gave him a clearer idea of the new art,
and convinced him finally that it was worth while to risk something on
it. He made a full contract with me, in which he bound himself to
furnish money and everything necessary, and use all his influence to
further the business, while I was to give all my time and knowledge. The
profits were to be divided into two equal parts, one of which was to be
his, while the other was to be divided between myself and Herr
Gleissner. He allotted a proper sum for my support, told me to rent a
comfortable residence, and authorized me to buy some large presses. He
told me frankly that the use of stone for cotton-printing had the most
interest for him, and that he cared about the other forms of printing
only as paying for our expenditures. When the big spinning-shops were
ready, said he, he would give me so great an opportunity that I could
let Herr Gleissner have all the art- and music-printing to himself.
What glorious prospects opened themselves to me! What could I think
except that it would require merely industry to become a famous, happy
man in a short period?
Here I must interpolate the account of a happening that brought about a
total rupture with Andre. Until now our relations had not been wholly
severed. His last word was that I would, no doubt, go to Vienna in vain,
and in that case I should return to him, as he would receive me with
open arms. When I saw his correspondent in Vienna and learned from him
that he had orders to let me have money if I wanted it; when I perceived
further that Madame Gleissner had been too hasty, and that all the
tangle was caused by misunderstandings, I dismissed all anger and wrote
to my friend Andre at once, telling him that I had found things not
nearly so bad in Vienna as he imagined. It was true, I said, that the
two women had failed to obtain the franchise, but mostly because they
could give no demonstrations. It was quite different, now that the
inventor himself was petitioning for it, especially as Herr von Hartl
had promised absolutely to take our part. If, therefore, Andre were
willing to spend at most one thousand gulden for a press and to pay for
our support and necessary working expenses for six months, there would
be absolutely no doubt of fortunate outcome.
Had I had the happy thought to ask Herr von Hartl to add a few lines, my
letter might have had the intended result. But I considered my word
sufficient, and unluckily my letter reached Offenbach when Andre was
absent, and was answered by his brother in about the following fashion:
His brother, he said, was absent; but as he knew his opinion exactly,
he would not keep me waiting. I must not be offended, but he believed
that my ready trustfulness, caused by my good-heartedness, had played me
a prank again. He was completely convinced from the advices of their
Vienna friends that the privilege would be granted only if his brother
removed bag and baggage to Vienna and had himself naturalized there,
something which his affairs did not permit. I would discover, soon
enough, that the lovely promises made me were nothing but air.
Then he went on to say that even if the sum of one thousand gulden
really were only a trifle, it would not produce the desired result.
Madame Gleissner, said he, had incurred debts of one hundred and fifty
gulden since she had broken with his brother, and as she had used this
sum not for his good but rather for his harm, it was only fair that she
pay it herself. I, probably, would be in debt nearly one hundred gulden,
now that I had been in Vienna some weeks with my brothers. If I wanted
to build a press in Vienna where wood is dear, it would cost easily one
hundred and fifty gulden. Then there would be one hundred gulden for
stones, etc. I would need a dwelling, for which I would have to pay at
least one hundred gulden in advance. This would leave only four hundred
gulden. The winter was at hand, neither my brothers nor Madame Gleissner
had the necessary clothing, everything would be needed. In brief, he
assured me, before many weeks the one thousand gulden would be spent and
in the end there would be no press, no stones, and no specimen work.
Therefore, he concluded, I should not feel affronted if he told me his
heartfelt thoughts. The aspect of the Vienna matter would, probably, be
different if my over-great good-heartedness did not put fetters upon me
that must prevent anybody from placing full confidence in my advice. I
would better, therefore, dismiss the plans, and be sure that nobody
meant it more sincerely with me than, etc.
It may be supposed that this letter gave me little pleasure; and I made
up my mind to show Herr Andre that he had made a mistake and had thrown
away a great profit idly. I made the contract with Herr von Hartl, and
we went to work actively at once. I had a large lever press built and
asked the Austrian Government to appoint a commission to examine the
process. This was done, and besides the Mayor, there appeared the
factory inspector, Herr von Jaquin, who was a Professor of Chemistry,
and the director of the academy of copper-plate engravers, Herr
Schmutzer. I showed them the various methods of printing from stone on
paper, cotton, and calico, and explained the difference of my process
from all others. My demonstrations were applauded, and the commission
certified most heartily in favor of my petition for the exclusive
privilege.
In addition, Herr von Hartl went with me to a meeting of the Imperial
Councilors, then to the Imperial Counsel of State, von Gruber, to Count
Lazansky, and, finally, to His Majesty, the Emperor himself. Everywhere
I had to make demonstrations with my little hand-press, at which time
Herr von Hartl, to my great joy, always acted as cicerone and eagerly
described the manifold advantage which the new art had for so many
branches of the arts and sciences.
Everywhere we received praise and were promised the speedy issuance of
the privilege. As, however, the matter had to take a regular course, and
it was evident that some time must elapse, we petitioned meantime for a
mere license to work, which we received within a few weeks, so that I
was able to begin printing without further delay.
Herr von Hartl became more friendly each day, and opened for me the most
beautiful outlook on the future. My easily moved imagination interpreted
his speeches as brightly as possible, and I imagined that I saw fortune
and position close at hand. I worked all the harder, therefore, to
fulfill his expectations; and as his chief object was printing on cotton
I threw myself zealously into the study of color, as absolute permanence
was needed besides beauty of printing.
During this time Herr Gleissner had left Offenbach and had returned to
Munich with his children. As I was in partnership with him, and he could
make himself useful in the printing of music, Herr von Hartl decided to
have him come to Vienna, and his wife took it on herself to get him and
arrange for an extension of his leave of absence. She found him in the
saddest of circumstances. In his ignorance of such things, he had sold
all the furniture in Offenbach for a mere joke of a sum. Most of this
money had been used to defray his traveling expenses, and she found the
family stripped of even necessaries. What was to be done? Her husband
and children needed clothing that they might not make a bad impression
in Vienna, her husband's debts had to be paid, and then came the
traveling expenses. The money advanced by Herr von Hartl was not nearly
enough for all this. She wrote to me to ask him for an additional sum of
three or four hundred gulden.
This was exceedingly unpleasant for me. I should have to tell him the
truth, and thus place Herr Gleissner in a bad light right in the
beginning. Furthermore, he had received no too favorable a report about
the domestic management of the two, either from Herr Andre's friend in
Vienna or perhaps from Herr Andre himself. It was torture for me to ask
him for money, especially if it was to be used for something not
absolutely necessary for the business in hand, as I knew his opinions in
that respect. Willingly as Herr von Hartl gave money when it was needed
to achieve a useful object, so reluctant was he if he deemed that it was
to be wasted. In my embarrassment I dropped a hint as to the situation
to our hostess, Madame von Tannenberg. She counseled me at once not to
ask, as the family would lose the respect of Herr von Hartl entirely,
and offered voluntarily to advance Madame Gleissner four hundred gulden
herself, if I would guarantee the payment of it in half a year. Nothing
seemed more certain to me than that I could save such a sum in that
time. I accepted her offer and sent the money to Munich on the same day.
I would not mention this apparently trivial matter, if it were not for
the fact that in the end it was the cause of the ruin of all my hopes in
Vienna.
The dealers had spared no pains to oppose my franchise in the beginning,
before they knew of my connection with Herr von Hartl, and while they
still considered me an unimportant foreigner, who had neither friends
nor influence. When they discovered the truth, their noise became
clamorous, for they had to fear in earnest now that their trade would
suffer, since so eminent and rich a man was associated with the new art.
The more important art dealers feared it less than the smaller ones,
among whom Herr Sauer and the new Industrie-Komptoir were my most active
enemies. Despite this, there opened a way suddenly by which I could
make peace with the art dealers and even draw considerable profit from
them.
Through Herr von Hartl, I became acquainted with a skillful
clavier-player, Teuber, who was also a composer, and at once showed
great interest in my invention. He spoke to his acquaintances, Herr
Sonnleithner and Herr Ricci. Through their intervention the art dealers
asked me if I would abstain from establishing a music-printery of my
own, providing they guaranteed me a sufficient amount of work. I
calculated that I could print six thousand sheets of music a day with
the three presses that I had planned. This, at the low price of
twenty-five kreuzer per hundred impressions, would amount in all to a
sum of twenty-five gulden. Also if I accepted, say, work that would
average three hundred impressions, there would be needed ten stones,
counting two sheets to each stone. Thus there would be a further
engraving profit of ten gulden, because I received fifty kreuzer for
each sheet, but paid my note-writer only twenty kreuzer. For house,
color, acids, polisher's wages, etc., there must be reckoned four gulden
a day. The six printers to operate the three presses would cost four
gulden a day also. Now if I reckoned two gulden a day for possible
accidental errors, etc., there would still remain twenty-five gulden a
day profit. This meant seven thousand and five hundred gulden clear
profit in the three hundred working days of a year, without the least
risk.
As I considered this a satisfactory profit for one single branch of my
art, I told Herr Sonnleithner that I would attempt to induce Herr von
Hartl to give up the idea of establishing his own publishing house,
provided that the united art dealers would guarantee me that amount of
work and agree also to reimburse me if the presses were not kept busy,
excepting through my own fault. Herr Sonnleithner welcomed the proposal,
not doubting that the dealers would need all the work stipulated, and,
indeed, declaring that the Art and Industrie-Komptoir alone might give
me twice that much.
I knew that Herr von Hartl had entertained little regard for this branch
of work. Therefore I thought it would delight him to find that he could
not only relieve himself from further expense in this line, but gain
several thousand gulden. I was mistaken. He deduced that music-printing
was not so unimportant as he had imagined; and he told me to inform the
dealers that I would take as much work as they offered at low prices,
but that we could not make ourselves dependent on them.
As the dealers refused decidedly to give me the means with their own
hands of building up a great establishment, the project fell entirely.
However, Herr von Hartl now had declared himself in favor of
establishing a music-printery; and a few days later there came a highly
favorable opportunity to start one at once under happy auspices,
together with a complete art publishing establishment.
An acquaintance of my landlady, to whom I had showed my printery, sent
for me to tell me that Herr Eder, an art dealer, wished to give up his
business because of illness and was willing to sell reasonably. This
friend enlarged on the luck it would be to obtain this well-situated
shop, which earned several thousand gulden by printing birthday and New
Year's cards alone, at the very easy terms which Herr Eder had suggested
provisionally. He desired me to see him at once, under the pledge of
secrecy, which pledge Herr von Hartl was to give also, as Herr Eder did
not wish to injure his credit by offering his establishment openly for
sale.
Herr Eder did, indeed, offer most favorable terms, according to my
opinion. He showed me that on the average the net profit of his business
had been ten thousand gulden annually during the last ten years. (At
that time the gulden notes stood at par.) Furthermore he estimated the
value of all his printed stock only at the cost of manufacture, and the
great stock of copper plates, many newly etched, at merely their value
as copper. The large stock of different papers, with the many writing
and drawing materials, were estimated at cost value, also. For his
trading rights, and for his excellent rental contract which had many
years to run, he did not ask anything. The sum that he asked for
everything was forty thousand gulden, of which only ten thousand gulden
were to be paid at once, the rest being paid in annual installments
during the following ten years.
If Herr von Hartl had accepted this, there would have been four thousand
gulden net profit a year in it. And by combining with it the advantages
of the new process, the profit was certain to be greater. To begin a
new publishing house without mercantile knowledge, without knowing what
the public wanted, would be far more difficult than to continue one that
already was in operation, especially so as Herr Eder had offered to
remain for a year as associate to teach me the business.
I cannot yet understand why Herr von Hartl discarded this proposition.
Perhaps he feared that he would be overreached in some way. He might
have been more receptive had he been able to foresee that his new
establishment would cost him a sum of twenty thousand gulden within a
very few years without advancing toward being even the ghost of a
business. Perhaps I did not possess the gift of convincing others. At
any rate, both projects failed to meet with approval. That Herr von
Hartl could be convinced, however, even to his plain injury, I will
prove later. For lithography the failure of this plan was a great loss,
because it would have given me opportunity to get into the art line ten
years earlier than I did, and make useful application of my inventions.
The family Gleissner now arrived in Vienna and brought one of my former
apprentices, Mathias Grünewald. Meantime some presses had been
completed, and we could begin to print. Gleissner's symphonies recently
had been much praised in a musical paper of Leipsic, and he proposed to
us to begin with a few of his works. Of course it would have been wiser
to begin with a good work by a famous man, whose name was sufficiently
popular in Vienna. I did visit Herr Doctor Haydn, but received the reply
that he could not compose any more and would only review old works
thenceforth.
Immediately at the commencement a stock of stones was needed. As we
could foresee that we should need some thousands of stones in the course
of time, Herr von Hartl decided to make a trip with me, by way of Munich
and Augsburg, to the quarries of Solenhofen that we might inform
ourselves on the spot about the best way to get stones.
A further inducement to make this journey was that he wished to examine
the estate of Niedau, which had been described as being very favorably
situated for the erection of manufactories. Herr von Hartl already had a
large spinnery in operation. This, and perhaps the printery, he planned
to establish in Niedau, because there both workers and property were
cheaper. He intended to leave only the business offices in Vienna.
The establishment of this spinnery had so important an effect on my fate
as well as on the future of lithography that I must describe it here.
When I arrived in Vienna, Count von Saurau had just gone to Petersburg
as Austrian Ambassador. Being a patron of home industries, he had
advanced ten thousand gulden some time before to an expert spinner named
Mistelbauer, to erect looms for manufacturing fine English and French
stuffs in Austria, a work for which Mistelbauer was perfectly qualified.
When the Count departed, Herr von Hartl took charge of several of his
interests, among them the Mistelbauer spinnery. Thus at the next Vienna
Messe (market-fair), Mistelbauer visited Herr von Hartl to make an
accounting. The goods that Mistelbauer had brought convinced Herr von
Hartl of his skill and technical capacity. The details of his processes,
and his ingenuity in operating so many looms with so little capital,
indicated to Herr von Hartl that increased capital would bring
enormously increased results. As the spinnery company had as good as
decided that a good part of their own products should be further worked
by themselves, Herr von Hartl considered it a lucky circumstance to meet
a particularly good weaver and also a cotton-printer, who alleged that
he could print the home-made cottons exactly as well as the English
printers and possibly at smaller cost.
He wrote to Count von Saurau that he was willing to assist Mistelbauer
with more money. Count Saurau agreed, and Herr von Hartl advanced money
to Mistelbauer till it reached a sum of forty thousand gulden. He
appeared only as a creditor, however, and held a mortgage on the entire
spinnery, with all its present and future stock, in order to be covered
should the operations fail.
Now Mistelbauer was a man who had little or no mercantile talent. He did
not understand book-keeping, and though he had managed the original
small establishment pretty well, he was not equal to the bigger one. A
factor should have been appointed to manage the commercial end and the
accounts. Another trouble was that Herr von Hartl, in order to satisfy
himself, continually demanded new sample work from him, which, on the
other hand, pleased Mistelbauer, as it enabled him to show his skill.
Thus, instead of working steadily along the original sound lines, he
kept going into new things. Among others he erected looms to make color,
and print Manchester fabrics. Regardless of the fact that I (as he well
knew) was working at cotton-printing, and that Herr von Hartl intended
to work my inventions, he managed to induce that gentleman to let him
erect a cotton-printery, a matter which he did not understand in the
least.
Mistelbauer had been a poor peasant boy of Helmannsöd by Linz. He had
gone into foreign lands in his youth, but when he obtained the ten
thousand gulden from Count Saurau, he selected his native place for the
works. Even at that time his improved condition aroused the envy of the
village; but he lived in a poor hut and differed in nothing from the
other inhabitants. When Herr von Hartl assisted him, he succeeded soon
in convincing him that they needed more room, and obtained his consent
for building. Instead of erecting a factory, he erected a considerable
dwelling, the cost of which was far beyond the original estimates. On
account of all the other work undertaken at the same time, nothing could
be finished in time, and Mistelbauer was continually too late for the
markets with his product. As a result, instead of being punctual with
all his payments as he had been heretofore, he could not even pay his
interest, and Herr von Hartl had to make new advances all the time.
Naturally Herr von Hartl began to feel apprehensive, and he decided to
visit Mistelbauer on the occasion of our journey to Solenhofen.
When we reached Helmannsöd, Herr von Hartl shook his head dubiously,
especially when he found the accounts in the greatest disorder. But the
great stock of goods, though most of them were only half finished, and
the thought that everything could be made to go smoothly again with
better management, encouraged him, and he instructed Mistelbauer,
showing him how to establish order in his works as well as in the
accounts.
Then we continued our journey. In Munich, where we remained three days,
I visited my mother and my brothers, who all lived together and were
operating a press that worked mostly for Herr Falter. According to their
assurances, their income had hardly sufficed to support them.
In Augsburg, Herr von Hartl contracted with a paper dealer for the paper
necessary for music-printing, and in Solenhofen he bought several
hundred stones for this work and made arrangements for future supplies.
Then we returned through Regensburg and Passau. This whole journey was
one of the greatest pleasures of my life. The weather was excellent, and
Herr von Hartl was so kind to me that I was more than ever convinced of
his sincere desire for my success.
We engaged two writers of music immediately on our return to Vienna. One
was J. Held, a young man recently married, who earned his living by
teaching and copying. The second was his brother-in-law. They
comprehended the process quickly and soon were so skillful that each
earned twelve gulden and more a week, despite the fact that we rarely
paid them more than twenty and twenty-four kreuzer for each sheet.
The new smaller works of Herr Gleissner were finished very soon, and it
became necessary to find more work to keep my etchers and four printers
busy. I asked Herr von Hartl to buy some compositions from Vienna's best
musicians, such as Krommer, Beethoven, etc. He was willing, but desired
to wait for a proper opportunity to speak to Herr Krommer. Thus some
weeks passed, and in order to keep the force busy, Herr Gleissner
composed continually and printed his work. Nearly a whole year passed
that way, and still Herr von Hartl had found no opportunity (owing to
his many affairs) to arrange with Herr Krommer or other composers.
So it happened that, with the exception of a few overtures, our whole
stock of paper and a whole year's work were used solely to print Herr
Gleissner's compositions. I myself had hardly anything to do with this
printing, which was managed entirely by Herr Gleissner; for I devoted
all my time to the study of color and to the necessary thousands of
experiments.
Here I had made the unpleasant discovery that most of what was in the
books was incorrect, or so incompletely stated that, before one could
understand the instructions, one needed to know the entire process of
cotton-making and printing. I cannot understand now why it never struck
Herr von Hartl or me that I did not need this knowledge at all, and that
all that was necessary in order to apply my method to cotton-printing
was for me to demonstrate how the printing could be done well and
quickly. To get color results it was necessary merely to engage a good
color expert, who could analyze colors and decide if they were available
for my process. That would have saved us a year and a considerable sum
of money which my experiments had cost. I confess that I had a mistaken
ambition on this point, wishing to understand everything myself. Then
the study of chemistry was most attractive to me, because I found myself
discovering new things of importance for my art all the time.
When at last I was completely informed in the matter of color, I went
with Herr von Hartl to the great machine-spinnery in Pottendorf. Here I
became acquainted with Herr Thornton and his remarkably complete
installation. With his assistance we made a stone-press for cotton, to
print the cotton from large plates. But the correct register of each
impression made so much trouble for us that I foresaw the need for many
further experiments and inventions. Besides, Herr Thornton was too
partial to the English process of cylinder-printing to feel particularly
favorable to the stone-process; and in the end it was considered best to
order a great piece of stone from Solenhofen from which we might make an
eight-inch cylinder.
It was six months before we obtained the requisite stone. During this
period it struck me that perhaps the cylinder did not need to be stone,
but that we might use copper cylinders, as in England. Herr Thornton
objected that copper cylinders must be engraved with the graving tool,
and that patterns for cotton should not be etched, since, if etching
were practical, the English, who understand etching perfectly, no doubt
would etch the cylinders.
To be sure, I could not answer this argument, but I was convinced that a
deep-etched stone would print as perfectly and handsomely as the best
copper plate. Why, then, could it not be done with copper, since copper
permitted itself to be etched so well? I made a little experiment at
once, and it succeeded perfectly. Herr Thornton proposed to make
completely sure. He had a small model press from England, the cylinder
of which had been engraved by the best cotton copper engraver of
England. Though it was only six inches long and three inches thick it
had cost twenty pounds to engrave. He proposed to have an exactly
similar cylinder made, which I was to etch in the same design, so that
competitive impressions could be made with both cylinders. The
proposition was accepted. To save money, it was decided to make a
cylinder from zinc instead of from copper.
After a few days it was ready and I drove with Herr von Hartl to
Pottendorf, where we arrived at half-past ten o'clock in the morning. I
started eagerly to do the drawing. As I perceived immediately, it
consisted purely of circular lines, and therefore I succeeded in
preparing the cylinder, drawing the design, and etching it before two
o'clock, at which time we were to have luncheon.
Mr. Thornton, who had expected that I would need at least eight days,
was astonished by my speed. To all appearances, the etched cylinder was
as good as the engraved one, and now it was merely a question of the
printing. He made the first impression with the copper cylinder, which,
of course, produced a very pretty piece of work. But when mine was
adjusted and the first impression came out, the astonishment of all
present reached its maximum, for the impressions were exactly as clear,
but at least twice as strong and therefore more beautiful. The reason
for this was that the engraving became narrower at the bottom, and
therefore held hardly half as much color as the etched lines.
The practicability of my etching process was settled; and Herr von Hartl
waited only to lay the matter before the society at the next general
meeting before proceeding to its exploitation on a large scale.
Truly it was high time for him to get some returns for his many
expenses. The stone-printery had cost him at least six thousand gulden
to this date. In return for this investment he had a good quantity of
stones, several presses, and a great stock of Gleissner's music, which
represented an income of twenty thousand gulden, if it could be sold.
At last we obtained the long-sought franchise (in 1803), and Herr von
Hartl decided to begin the business. I proposed to him to rent a shop
and engage an experienced man to manage it. But he replied that I was
merely suggesting another burden of nearly two thousand gulden a year,
with no certain prospect of a penny's income. Rather, said he, I was to
give the finished work to the dealers and let them sell them on a
percentage, so that we could see how the public liked stone-printing.
Herr von Hartl was trying at this time to rid himself of all expenses
that were not absolutely necessary. He was growing more and more
dissatisfied with Mistelbauer, his health was poor, and irritating
business troubles were anything but good for him. He expressed his
regret many times because he had undertaken so many things. His many
enterprises, which up to this time had proved anything but profitable,
took so much of his time that he had to give up his far more
advantageous interests as Imperial Court Agent, and thus lost heavily in
that direction also. The stock of spun wool kept piling up in the
company's magazines, and this, too, seemed to promise no greatly
satisfactory results.
However, I could see that I could expect only small sales in Vienna if I
depended on the dealers, who were my opponents and would hardly be very
eager to aid my success. Therefore, I conceived the thought, equally
unpractical, as it turned out, of putting our work into the hands of a
book publisher; and as I had just observed much empty space in the shop
of Peter Rehm's widow, I agreed with her to turn over our stock to her
at twenty-five per cent discount.
It was arranged that there be an accounting each month, and I looked
forward to the end of the first month with great impatience, because I
hoped for a considerable income. It was highly necessary, to help me pay
off the debt that I had loaded on myself to defray Herr Gleissner's
traveling expenses,--a debt that now had stood for two years, and that
the skillful manipulations of my dear landlady and her faithful legal
adviser had increased from four hundred gulden to two thousand. Many
times during the month I inquired as to the sales and received the
answer that they were good. I was satisfied, and did not require further
statements, as I did not wish to anticipate the pleasant surprise that
I expected when the month's accounting was made. But alas! How I was
shocked at the end of the month when the sum of ten gulden and
forty-eight kreuzer turned out to be all! I did not know how I could
appear before Herr von Hartl with the news. My walk to his house was one
of the bitterest of my life. I was not received as badly as I had
expected. On the contrary, Herr von Hartl comforted me and advised me to
have patience, that all beginnings were slow, etc. In short, I enjoyed
the most pleasant anticipations again. Unhappily, at the end of the
second month the accounting gave us one gulden, thirty-six kreuzer. Now
the patience of Herr von Hartl reached its end.
He had just lost heavily again in the Mistelbauer affair. It worried him
seriously, and as his health continued poor, he inclined to listen to
the advice of his wife, who represented to him that he did not need to
burden himself thus, and that he would better pocket his losses and
retire from all the matters that worried him.
Therefore, when his secretary, Steiner, advised him to send a certain
Grasnitzky to Helmannsöd, he accepted the suggestion, and Grasnitzky
went there with unlimited power to do what he thought best. Now of
course it was vital that Grasnitzky be absolutely honest, as otherwise
it was certain that he would make the worst possible report in order to
get everything into his own hands. Hardly had he made a superficial
inspection before he reported that Herr von Hartl was being cheated by
Mistelbauer. As soon as he had driven the man and his family out of the
house and had gained possession of the finished stock that was on hand,
he took away everything that was in the hands of the local weavers, and
transported it to Linz to be finished and sold.
Hardly had Herr von Hartl received the alarming news that only the
highest degree of commercial talent could save the capital that he had
invested in this business, before worse news came. While Grasnitzky was
in Linz, fire started in Helmannsöd and spread to Mistelbauer's house,
which Grasnitzky had locked up. The peasants saved their own houses and
were not at all displeased to let the handsome new building, with all
its machinery and stock, burn down.
The hard blows were too much for poor Mistelbauer, who was now reduced
to total beggary. He became ill and died soon afterward in great misery.
Nothing was left now except for Grasnitzky to finish the goods he had
saved, and to sell them as well as possible.
Naturally the loss was considerable, despite all efforts; and of course
it was an unfavorable circumstance for me that this affair should be
contemporary with my failure to sell the sheet-music. Herr von Hartl
lost all hope of success with stone-printing, and probably would have
given it up entirely, had his secretary, Steiner, not advised him to
continue. He pointed out that the small sales were due not to the
printing, but to the unwise selection of work, which was almost wholly
the composition of a composer quite unknown in Vienna. He said that they
needed a man as manager who had the necessary knowledge and who also had
a good shop for making sales, and that thus stone-printing would become
a veritable gold mine. He proposed the antiquarian Grund, who had a shop
in the same street as Herr von Hartl's house. Herr von Hartl agreed.
I was informed that hereafter I was to communicate only with Herr Grund
about work, and that he would make all payments in Herr von Hartl's
name, select the works to be published, and make quarterly accountings,
at which he would deduct thirty per cent for himself.
I was glad, because it relieved me of many cares and I foresaw success
once more. New life came into the work. We hired two more writers, and
printed bravely. Grund succeeded in inducing Herr von Hartl to increase
his investment during the first year so that the original capital of six
thousand gulden that was already sunk in the work had grown to twenty
thousand gulden. But when at last the fourth quarter passed without an
accounting from Grund, and still there was no dividend, he lost patience
again, and no doubt Steiner had to bear some censure because of his
unfortunate suggestion. To soothe his master he proposed to take
everything out of Grund's hands and establish a publishing house. As
this would demand more capital, Herr von Hartl declined, being quite
sated. Then Steiner came out with the project: he would seek to induce
Grasnitzky, who had done so much already, to undertake this business
also; he added that he himself was disposed to put in some capital and
take a personal part in the business, for a third part of the profits.
Just then I was in fatal embarrassment. The legal adviser of our
landlady pressed harshly for payment. He even went to Herr von Hartl.
That gentleman sent for me immediately and declared that he would try
Steiner's plan, and that it would be his last attempt, and that I could
see myself that there was nothing else to do. Since he promised to pay
my debt, and I hoped for good results anyway from Herr Steiner's
coöperation, I agreed willingly.
Now passed another year, during which a number of pieces of music were
printed under Grasnitzky's and Steiner's directions, and some
experiments made in art work. An artist, Karl Müller, learned to draw
nicely on stone partly with the pen, partly with the brush. Among many,
often very excellent efforts, one of his most successful was a copy of
Preissler's drawing-lessons. The first number was printed under my
direction and came out very well. The other numbers, which were printed
when I was in Munich again, were reported as not having been so good.
The reason probably was that they were printed with a new press ordered
by Herr Grasnitzky, which did not have the power necessary for printing
from stone, thus making necessary a softer color not satisfactory for
pen-drawing. In the end Herr Steiner is credited with having improved
this press very much. I shall describe it in its most complete form in
my description of presses which will follow.
Judging from the amount of printing done, Steiner and Grasnitzky
appeared to understand their business. In a short time they actually
printed a second impression of some of the Gleissner compositions, which
met with good sales, especially in Poland.
I was delighted with this activity, especially as I hoped for a part of
the profit for myself at the end of the year; but Herr Steiner, instead
of accounting to me, assured me that I could entertain no hopes for ten
years, as Herr von Hartl's investment of twenty thousand gulden would
have to be repaid before there could be any question of dividing
profits. I realized what this meant; and to avoid bringing a lawsuit,
for which I lacked the means anyway, I decided to sell Herr Steiner my
interests. He offered me six hundred gulden, and when, at last, I
accepted it, he paid me fifty gulden because he had a claim on Herr
Gleissner for five hundred and fifty gulden, something of which I had
been in ignorance.
The loss of this business pained me, but Herr von Hartl comforted me
with the example of other inventors, who had received no better returns.
Now the cotton-printery was my only hope. A third of the Pottendorf
Company had declared itself in favor of erecting a factory, and in fact
one thousand two hundred gulden had been appropriated to make a trial on
a large scale. I went to Pottendorf and ordered a machine in which the
cylinders were of cast-iron instead of copper, because Herr Thornton had
two very handsome iron cylinders, two yards long and eight inches in
diameter, which had been intended for another purpose but were
sufficient for my trials.
As soon as the printing-machine was ready, Herr Thornton had it
connected with the water-wheel of the cotton-spinnery, so that one
needed only to pull a cord to set the cylinders in motion and see the
printing of the cotton proceed without human help, as if of itself.
Nothing was needed now except to etch the design in the upper cylinder.
The design consisted of a simple little flower, many times repeated, and
it seemed to me to be anything except difficult. But after I had covered
the cylinder with the etching surface and started to work with the
graver, I saw, after a very few strokes, why it had not been possible
before this to produce cotton patterns by etching and why engraving had
been necessary.
It was not possible for me to draw even three of the little flowers into
the etching surface with the free hand so firmly and evenly as this sort
of printing demanded if it was to appear thoroughly accurate to the eye.
This was in spite of the fact that I had first drawn the design
carefully in measured squares on stone and transferred it in red to the
black cylinder. My strokes were too trembling and uneven, so that I
nearly gave up the hope of ever doing anything excellent in this way,
unless I were to expend as much or more time than would be needed for
the regular process of engraving.
The failure of this attempt, and the disgrace that would come to me as a
result, spurred me on to invent some method to overcome the difficulty
of drawing. I succeeded so unexpectedly that the very failure became the
means to greater perfection.
To cover the entire surface of the cylinder it would be necessary to
draw thirty thousand flowers. Had I not experienced the slightest
difficulty, I still would have needed half a minute for each flower, and
thus I would scarcely have been able to finish an entire cylinder inside
of a month. But I invented a drawing-machine with which, though I was
not a skillful draftsman, I could draw the entire design within two
days, and with an accuracy that hardly could be attained by the
engraving-tool. With this instrument I drew the design on the black
etching surface of the cylinder, etched it and made a sample printing
which, when it was repeated afterward in presence of Fürst von Esterhazy
and other members of the company, earned universal praise.
Herr von Hartl planned to obtain an exclusive franchise for this
cylinder cotton-printing, sell it to the company, and have me appointed
as director, something like Herr Thornton, who drew not only a decent
salary but also a fourth part of the profit from the entire spinnery. As
I could see readily that a company with such enormous resources could
soon bring a cotton-print establishment to a great stage, it did not
seem impossible to me that the annual income might rise to a million, as
in the Ebreichsdorfer factory. If the net profits were only five per
cent, there still would be more than twelve thousand gulden annually for
me, and I was sure to be a rich man in a short time. So I thanked Herr
von Hartl heartily and continued to perfect my process in every tiny
detail.
The fear had arisen that iron cylinders might affect the handsome reds
and other fine colors. Herr Thornton, who had become my friend, promised
to make for me cast copper cylinders with iron cores: and his
preparations for this work were almost completed when again fate ruined
all my hopes.
Napoleon had just completed the Continental blockade; and the English
cotton stuffs were not to be had anywhere. This forced all the weavers
and manufacturers of the inland to buy from the Pottendorfer Works, and
the sale of their output became so great that the formerly overcrowded
storehouses were emptied in a short time. "Why should we erect a new,
different factory? Rather let us enlarge the present one." This was the
general and entirely sensible decision of the company. Herr von Hartl
would not interest himself further in the process, because our hope of
an exclusive franchise had been ruined through the treachery of a
foreman in the spinnery, who had made drawings of our machine and sold
them to various cotton-making establishments, who were already imitating
the process. So there was nothing left for me except to seek my fortune
elsewhere.
In my pain over my oft-ruined hopes I complained to a good friend, Herr
Madlener, a tinner in Pottendorf, and this noble man was ready at once
to seek another opportunity for me. The very next day he told me that a
cotton-printer in Vienna, Herr Blumauer, would pay me five hundred
gulden for a small model press for cylinder printing on cotton. This
turned out true. Fourteen days later he made me acquainted with the
brothers Faber, who had a cotton-works in St. Polten, and who, on
Madlener's recommendation, made an extremely satisfactory contract with
me for the erection of a complete cylinder printery.
I thought myself happy to come into relations with this firm at whose
head were two of the noblest of men, and was just ready to go to St.
Polten, when my destinies received a new direction through a strange
chain of circumstances, that opened for me an excellent prospect again
of making great advances in improving my lithographic invention.
My brothers had written to me several times while I was in Vienna,
complaining about scarcity of work and their resultant poverty.
Therefore it is not to be wondered at that I did not exactly long to
return to Munich, despite the fact that my hopes in Vienna had become
steadily less. Probably I should have returned again to Herr Andre in
Offenbach, as Gleissner and his family were pretty well placed with
Steiner and Grasnitzky, had not Madame Gleissner conceived the idea of
making personal inquiries about the conditions in Munich.
Shortly before, a Bavarian court musician had visited Vienna and had
visited his friend Gleissner. From him we learned that my brothers were
doing very well. They had good positions with the Feyertag School and
had sold their franchise for stone-printing to the Royal Government. It
was even reported that they had formed a company with Herr von Hazzi to
establish a press and publishing house, and that they expected to get a
comfortable building from the Government.
Madame Gleissner went to Munich at once and ascertained that the report
was true. She also met our old apprentice, Grünewald, who had left
Vienna in 1804 with one of our note-writers, Held, to erect a
stone-printing establishment for Breitkopf and Härtl in Leipsic. He had
just returned to Munich, and he induced Madame Gleissner to join him in
erecting a small printing-house, which she did all the more willingly,
since she hoped that it would earn her expenses for her in Munich. This
occasion led to her acquaintance with Abt Vogler, who gave her several
pieces of music to print.
Stone-printing pleased Abt Vogler so much that he proposed to Freiherr
Christoph von Aretin, Royal Court and Central Library Director, to
establish a printery and take into partnership the inventor as well as
Herr Gleissner. Freiherr von Aretin was willing, and they made a
provisional contract with Madame Gleissner, under which I and her
husband were to go to Munich and establish a stone-press, for which
Freiherr von Aretin and Abt Vogler would furnish the money.
I was pleasantly surprised when Madame Gleissner returned to Vienna with
this news. Freiherr von Aretin was one of my old schoolmates in the
Munich Gymnasium; and as he always used to gain the first prize in
everything from the lowest class to the highest, I had entertained the
greatest respect for him since youth. I would have thought myself
fortunate even then to make his nearer acquaintance, because I ever have
had a decided admiration for remarkable persons.
In later days it happened once that my mother dwelled in his house and
could not pay her rent, owing to certain misfortunes, and when she asked
him to excuse the delay he made her a present of the entire sum. This
proof of a noble soul was not calculated to lessen my regard for him.
Therefore I snatched at the proposal with joy.
She had been urged earnestly to hurry matters, as Abt Vogler had various
works which he wished to have printed as soon as possible. Unfortunately
my contract with the brothers Faber, which I had signed the day before,
would have delayed me for many months. I tried, therefore, if I could
induce them to permit me to spend a few months in Munich before I
started their work in St. Polten. The excellent men agreed gladly, and
even advanced money to me that I might have various copper cylinders
made in Munich, so that I would be able to go ahead without delay later
in St. Polten.
PART III
FROM 1806 TO 1817
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, and where Abt Vogler awaited us. He
proposed to erect the printery in the cloister; but when he saw that I
was not at all pleased with the idea, he started with us for Munich.
Hardly had we arrived there before Abt Vogler suggested several plans
which all contemplated only his own profit, and which would have
redounded to Freiherr von Aretin's disadvantage. When he realized at
last that we would not agree to his demands, and when Freiherr von
Aretin insisted that Herr Vogler pay his share of the capital at once
and in cash, instead of paying it by furnishing music whose value he set
very high, he severed his connection with our company. There was also
the added reason that the Royal Academy of Sciences did not reëlect him
as a member, a fact which made him wish to leave Munich as soon as
possible.
At this time a former workman of my younger brother Karl, a man named
Strohhofer, commenced a printery. Madame Gleissner stopped this unlawful
violation of our rights with the aid of the royal police, and this
impelled Strohhofer to seek Abt Vogler, probably in order to gain his
intercession with Freiherr von Aretin.
Vogler thought that he had made an important discovery, as the man knew
how to speak very impressively of his knowledge and skill. He imagined
that he could publish his works without our aid, perhaps even without
cost. Therefore he promised to assist Strohhofer, made an appointment
with him for a future day, and suggested to him how he could support
himself meantime by selling the secret of the art.
Stuttgart was one of the towns suggested to him. Strohhofer circulated a
pompous proclamation there, boasting of his talents and offering his
services to anybody and everybody. Thus he came into communication with
Herr Cotta. The inferiority and incompleteness of his knowledge were
perceived very soon; but as even the imperfect results hinted at the
importance of the new printing process, the result was that finally,
through the assistance of an art-lover, Herr Rapp, the book, _The Secret
of Stone-Printing_, was published by Herr Cotta. It was the first
publication that showed true appreciation publicly of the art.
Immediately in the beginning of our establishment in Munich, our
enterprise gained brilliant aspects through Freiherr von Aretin's
activity. Several presses were operated, for music, for governmental
work, and even for art. Then came the publication of Albrecht Dürer's
_Prayer-Book_, which gave us an honorable reputation. This work was
acclaimed by all art-lovers, and the conviction gained ground everywhere
that the new process which hitherto had possessed few friends, was not
so unimportant as had been believed generally.
The professor of the Feyertag School, Herr Mitterer, had done important
preparatory work in Munich to gain a favorable decision. My brothers had
imparted to him the entire process. He had found that the so-called
crayon process, of which I had shown proofs as early as 1799, was best
adapted for his purpose of reproducing elementary drawing-lessons, and
he had succeeded in inducing the Government to establish a lithographic
institute under his direction, in which my brothers were employed as
lithographers. To be sure, this was a violation of my franchise; but the
reason was that the authorities supposed my brothers to be the owners of
the franchise, both on account of the name and because they had
conducted the Munich printery for some years in my name.
Freiherr von Aretin counted on the sole use of the franchise, which he
had believed to be unassailable when he formed our company and advanced
the necessary money; but when in time he complained because the Royal
Government as well as private persons established printeries, he
received the reply that the art had long ceased to be a secret,--as if a
condition of the franchise had been that a useful process must be kept
secret. In that case I could not have employed any man either for
drawing or printing, as that would have involved the loss of secrecy and
thus the loss of the franchise.
My connection with Freiherr von Aretin lasted four years. During this
time I turned out a great amount of government work, such as circulars,
statistical tables, charts, etc., besides many specimens in various
forms of art. At that time the idea was first conceived for the present
text-book of lithography, and, indeed, we published the first
installment of the sample plates. Still, our enterprise was far less
successful than Freiherr von Aretin and I had hoped.
It was very difficult to obtain skillful workmen, especially writers and
artists. Even Strixner and Pilotti, whom we had engaged and who worked
at producing facsimiles of the Royal Manual Drawing Cabinet, were very
slow to gain the necessary perfection and speed. And again we lacked the
manager, namely, a man who understood business and knew what to produce
and how to sell it.
I myself was heavily burdened, as I had not only to exercise continual
supervision of the five presses, but also was practically the only one
who could prepare the plates for those presses. Added to this was the
fact that the printers were almost all uneducated men, some of whom
could not even read, and they spoiled many plates that I had to
reproduce. This caused so much loss of time that already was
insufficient, that it is no wonder that several presses came to a
standstill frequently. Luckily there were government jobs at times that
demanded fifteen thousand and more impressions. This enabled me to
prepare new material while the presses were busy. On the whole, however,
this work had the disadvantage of demanding such speed that usually all
the five presses had to work at it, so that, when it was done, they were
all at a standstill together, sometimes for weeks; and then the wages,
etc., consumed the previous profit, so that in the end little or nothing
was left.
Thus it was natural that Herr von Aretin, who was being annoyed at this
time by other affairs, began to lose his enthusiasm for lithography.
Therefore, when he had to go to Neuburg as Governmental-Director, and
could not participate personally any more, and when, at the same time,
Herr Gleissner and I obtained situations with the Royal Tax Service, he
sold the establishment to Herr von Manlich, the Director of the Royal
Gallery, and to Herr Zeller, a merchant.
Although our connection was broken in this manner, and despite the fact
that we had not won the expected results, still stone-printing had
attained respect and support through Freiherr von Aretin's patronage. We
had to thank him for the fact that our institution was praised by the
most celebrated native and foreign statesmen, and even by their Royal
Highnesses, the Crown Prince of Bavaria and his most noble sister
Charlotte, present Empress of Austria. Our beloved Crown Prince wrote on
paper with the so-called chemical or stone-ink, "Lithography is one of
the most important inventions of the century." And his noble sister
wrote the short but eloquent words, "I honor the Bavarians!" These lines
were printed on the stone in their presence.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince exhibited so much interest in this
Bavarian invention that he condescended to order the sculptor,
Kirchmeier, of Munich, to model my bust in plaster, so that in the
future, when lithography should have attained an honorable place in the
whole public estimation, it could be carved in stone and erected among
the most celebrated artists of Bavaria.
In general my connection with Freiherr von Aretin had given me several
well-founded prospects for an active and honorable future. He promised
that, when his circumstances permitted, he would put me into position to
use my entire time only for making useful inventions, for which purpose
I should have all the material and workers that I might need. We would
then investigate all branches of art and industry, to discover
possibilities of improvement. He possessed the true viewpoint,
appreciating how I could best be useful to the fatherland, and perhaps
to all humanity. I shall ever consider it as my greatest misfortune that
circumstances made it impossible to carry out this plan, and thus to
justify the great confidence that he reposed in my inventiveness and
ability.
A second beautiful hope arose in France, where I was encouraged by
Freiherr von Aretin to expect the management of an imperial lithographic
institute, with a great financial allowance, Herr von Manlich, and the
French artist, Herr Denon, who was in high favor with Napoleon, having
made strong efforts to that end. This hope also met disappointment owing
to the circumstances of the times.
A third hope of no less importance was to erect a cotton-printery in
Munich or Augsburg in association with His Excellency Count von Arco,
Court Chamberlain of Her Royal Highness the widowed Kurfürstin of
Bavaria. This was ruined by the clumsiness of a Munich wood-turner, who
made such uneven cylinders that we could not produce any satisfactory
specimens. Although I made arrangements at once for a large English
machine, like those used by Mr. Thornton, its manufacture was so slow
that two years elapsed, and during this time our entire lithographic
establishment was dissolved.
The idea of a cotton-printery was an unfortunate one, which not only
cost much time and a great sum of money, but also had the unpleasant
result that I could not fulfill my contract with the Faber brothers and
thus, in addition to the resultant personal financial loss, had the pain
of appearing before these most noble men in a poor light.
All this trouble was caused as follows. On invitation of Count von Arco,
his brother-in-law, Count von Montgelas, Royal Minister of State,
visited our institution and examined our work. At the request of
Freiherr von Aretin I made an experimental printing with the little
model cotton-printing press that I had brought from Vienna. It won his
approval. Freiherr von Aretin intended to ask for a franchise for this
process in Bavaria, where it had not yet been introduced. The Minister
promised this and also held out the hope of a considerable financial
assistance from the Government. Then I was foolish enough to try to
increase his interest by telling him of the value that foreign lands set
on this process, and thus I informed him of my contract with the Fabers.
But this had an unexpected result. His Excellency heard the information
most ungraciously, and said that I must not hope for the least
assistance in Bavaria if I permitted myself to be used for the
advantage of another state. He even declared that there was a royal
rescript forbidding Bavarian subjects from using an art in foreign lands
if its exclusive use were of importance for Bavaria. This rescript, said
he, fitted my case exactly, and it was forbidden to me, under pain of
highest disfavor, to proceed farther with the Austrians.
This embarrassed me mightily. Freiherr von Aretin and Count von Arco
promised to urge the Minister to permit me to go to Vienna, on the
ground that this method of printing cotton was no invention of mine,
having been used long ago in England and for some time in Austria. But
Freiherr von Aretin was not very desirous that I should absent myself
for several months in the very beginning of our enterprise, and thus
time passed without the hoped-for permission.
As the Fabers pressed me earnestly to fulfill my agreement, I devised a
subterfuge that might permit me to keep my promise and still not lay
myself open to too great a responsibility. I wrote to them advising them
to have their correspondent in Munich demand through the court that I be
forced to fulfill the contract. I considered that the city courts in
Munich would have no particular knowledge of the royal rescript or, at
least, that they would not immediately remember it, and that, when I
admitted the existence of the contract, they would command me to keep it
at once. Then I would obey immediately, and afterward could justify
myself with the Bavarian Government by pointing to the court's decree.
It would surely have succeeded had not the correspondent of the Fabers
failed in business after bringing suit, owing to which the matter got
into another lawyer's hands. This man immediately adopted a new strange
course. Instead of demanding a fulfillment of the contract, he sued for
twelve thousand gulden damages for their loss of time. Of course I had
to fight for my skin now; and as he refused to content himself with my
agreement to fulfill the contract, I was forced at last to defend myself
by falling back on the royal rescript. Thus I escaped by merely repaying
the money already advanced; but I lost the considerable sum that would
have been assured to me had I been permitted to spend only two months in
St. Polten.
Thus none of the good prospects that opened themselves through my
connection with Freiherr von Aretin proved so good as I had been
justified in hoping: nay, it seemed as if I had only labored day and
night to give others the benefits accruing from my painful labors, while
I barely supported existence.
Freiherr von Aretin wished that the management of the business be in the
hands of a man who possessed his own fullest confidence, but whom I did
not consider at all suitable, as he was a royal official and as such
could not do business in a public shop. Consequently the trade was
carried on in his own residence, which was known to only few people and
where nobody looked for the manifold things that we could have produced
to good profit. This at last lowered our establishment to a mere job
printery, which finally could not maintain itself, because more and more
similar establishments were started in Munich, and the prices for work
became lower and lower through their hungry competition.
It may not be uninteresting to tell briefly how so many printeries
happened to be undertaken.
The first was established by Gleissner and myself, and was continued
afterward in my name by my brothers Theobald and George, until 1805.
They sold the secret to the Feyertag School, where an excellent art
institute developed gradually under Herr Mitterer.
Strohhofer learned the elements of the process from my brother Karl, and
associated himself, in 1806, with Herr Sidler, royal court musician, who
had studied first with my brothers, then with Madame Gleissner, and then
in the Aretin printery. When Strohhofer left Munich, Sidler erected a
stone-printery for the Government, and after he had obtained an official
permit before the expiration of my franchise, he established his own
institution, producing very good work.
During this time Madame Gleissner had petitioned the Government
frequently for sufficient work to assist her, and had obtained the
promise through His Excellency the Minister of State, von Montgelas.
Then it happened that the chief of a newly organized bureau, Freiherr
von Hartmann, having a great deal of writing to do in beginning his new
work, decided to introduce lithography for the purpose of saving labor.
His intention was to have it all done in our institution. No doubt he
had communicated this plan to von Montgelas; for as he met Madame
Gleissner about this time, and she asked again for work, he said that he
had given Senefelder enough work to keep ten presses busy, and if he had
not yet received it, he would get it soon through Freiherr von Hartmann.
There evidently was a misunderstanding here on account of the name. When
Freiherr von Hartmann sent one of his subordinates to call Senefelder to
him, he brought my brother Theobald, who immediately got orders to
establish a lithographic office, and shortly afterward was appointed
Inspector of Lithography. Beside a considerable salary, he received the
following other incomes, first, excellent pay for all work that was
turned in; second, an agreement that if his ten presses could not be
sufficiently employed by the bureau, he might work for other
governmental bureaus and for private persons. Thus he received a great
deal of work, among other jobs the printing of passports for the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which earned large sums for him in a short
time and placed him in very good circumstances.
He could not conceal his good luck, and so it came that many people
imagined that stone-printing was a means for getting rich quickly, which
resulted in a disproportionate growth of new shops. Out of his own there
sprang two, namely, those of Helmle and Roth, who erected their own
printeries under the permit of the police.
At the same time a lithographic institution was erected in the Royal
Asylum for the Poor on the Anger; and a Herr Dietrich, of a government
bureau, also established one.
My own prospects became worse and worse toward the year 1810. Though I
may flatter myself that I perfected myself very greatly through
unceasing practice and thousands of experiments, still, without a
fortunate accident, it might well have happened that I would have been
forced to think it lucky if I could obtain work under one of my former
apprentices.
I even suffered the insult of having the papers declare that though I
had invented the art roughly, I had kept it secret for a long time
through selfishness, and had never understood how to use it for anything
except merely printing music. The falsity and humiliating character of
this statement were bound to pain me the more bitterly, since all other
stone-artists and stone-printers had learned only from me, and not one
(not even Herr Mitterer, the most expert and, perhaps because of that,
the most modest) possessed the art as a whole, in all its parts, as
perfectly as I did. I hope that my text-book will prove this.
So far as the secret was concerned, the statement was an evident
falsehood. Since the moment when I received the exclusive franchise in
Bavaria, in the year 1799, I had made no secret of any part of my
process toward any living being. I showed the whole manipulation to my
workmen as well as to all strangers. Those who knew me more intimately
and realized, therefore, that I could not resist the desire for
communicating anything that I discovered to benefit mankind, often
censured me severely for my frankness, saying that I could have been a
millionaire had I kept my art a secret. But this was equally erroneous.
I never could have succeeded to any degree with my own means.
The false belief that I desired exclusive enjoyment of the results of
stone-printing, is in direct contradiction of the fact that the lack of
secrecy was held to invalidate my exclusive franchise. The idea may have
arisen, at least partly, through the circumstance that several of my
former workmen, or others who learned something of the art, made a
wonderful secret of it, in order to be considered more important. This
was carried to such an extent that some traveled from place to place and
sold their knowledge to many people for large sums under the seal of
confidence. I pity those who thus received in exchange for their money
something of little or no use, when they could have learned from me for
practically nothing, as it always was my greatest delight to converse
with intelligent men about those subjects that interested me so deeply
as inventor.
After making this little excursion, which was needed for my
justification, I return to my story.
There were, then, in 1809, six public printeries in Munich besides mine,
without reckoning those which several artists had made for their own
use. The foremost among the latter was Herr Mettenleithner, Royal
Copper Plate Engraver. He was one of the first to whom I had shown
specimens, as early as 1796, of the new process, but he had paid little
attention to it. Partly through various very excellent specimens from
Herr Mitterer's print, and partly through the work of Strixner and
Pilotti, he was induced to make experiments. A son of Herr von Dall'
Armi, who was taking lessons just then in drawing and copper etching for
his own pleasure, interested himself in the process. As a result, the
latter established a lithographic institution in Rome, which, so far as
I know, never achieved any decided success.
Soon afterward Herr Mettenleithner, in association with one of the best
of the Aretin printers, a man named Weishaupt, laid the foundation for
the stone-printery of the Royal Tax Commission (Königliche Unmittelbare
Steuer-Kataster-Kommission), which is now the most important of all the
lithographic institutions of Munich. A little later a similar
institution was founded for reproduction purposes by the Royal Privy
Council, through Herr Mettenleithner's son-in-law, Herr Winter.
Herr Mettenleithner was appointed director of the great establishment,
which employed some thirty engravers, to etch the plans of the
Steuer-Kataster, which received fifteen to twenty thousand impressions
each. At this time the Kingdom of Bavaria was being charted in great
detail for tax-regulation purposes, under the management of Privy
Councilor von Utzschneider, the man who has done so much for Bavaria's
home industries. There were required at least two exact copies of each
map, and close calculation proved that it would be possible to etch the
charts on stone and make several hundred impressions for the money that
these two copies would cost if done by hand. In addition, each of these
impressions was good enough to serve as an original.
The lithographic institution of the Royal Steuer-Kataster had been in
operation for some time when a trivial occurrence had the most important
effect on my fate.
It became necessary to print a sheet of such great size that there
happened to be no stone in Munich large enough. Weishaupt remembered
that he had seen stones in my possession which I had purchased partly
for map-work and partly for printing cotton and tapestries. He sent a
printer to me with a letter from Royal Tax Councilor von Badhauser,
requesting that I sell the Government a stone of the necessary
dimensions. Herr von Badhauser was a friend of my father, and I myself
always had entertained the highest respect for him. He was also a friend
of Herr Gleissner, and had done many things to oblige him. I embraced
the opportunity of doing him a favor with joy, and the matter probably
would have had no further consequences, had not Madame Gleissner arrived
just as the stone was being taken away.
She suspected that the stone might be desired for a purpose other than
the one stated, and sought Herr von Badhauser to ascertain the truth. On
this occasion she complained to him that the Government, not content
with infringing our franchise by erecting its own printeries, also took
away our workmen after I had trained them with much labor and expense.
Herr von Badhauser was surprised. He said that Privy Councilor von
Utzschneider had wished to turn work over to me, but that my reply to
his proposal, which had been laid before me by a designer named Schiesl,
had been that it was against my arrangements to collaborate with any
other establishment, and that, on the contrary, it was my intention,
with the assistance of Freiherr von Aretin, to press our suit against
the Government for infringement.
This Herr Schiesl, a pupil of Herr Methleithner, had worked for us
occasionally, and, indeed, was one of the first to use the new process
for drawings, especially pen-drawings. As he was rather adept and showed
great interest, I gave him full instructions in everything, and he knew
all my circumstances exactly. Thus he understood thoroughly that my
future depended on the turn that Freiherr von Aretin's affairs might
take, and that our situation was precarious, owing to the competition of
so many establishments. Therefore, I cannot understand how he came to
utter a statement so contrary to the truth.
Madame Gleissner hurried to Herr von Utzschneider and explained my real
intentions to him. He promised to consider the matter earnestly.
Herr Professor Schiegg, an excellent geometrician and astronomer, was
member of the Steuer-Kataster-Kommission, and had the supervision over
the entire institution. He was not well satisfied. Too many costly
proof-prints were being made, and the impressions did not please him.
Accidentally he saw my receipt for payment for the stone which I had
furnished, and he observed that I did not ask more for it than the
Commission had to pay for stones only half as large. Also I charged only
twenty-four kreuzer for polishing, whereas the Commission had been
paying one gulden for stones of four square feet. He took occasion to
represent to the Commission that it might be well to give me the
management of the establishment.
Herr von Utzschneider sent for me and asked for a proposition. After
discussion with Freiherr von Aretin I proposed that the Commission let
me print their etched plates for two kreuzer per impression, in return
for which I would pay the workmen, defray the cost of all printing
material, and also keep the presses in repair, pull necessary proofs
without charge, and bear the cost of all imperfect work.
This plan seemed very fair to me, as the Royal Commission would save two
thirds of the expenses it had defrayed hitherto; but it met with such
opposition that Herr von Utzschneider advised me to make another
proposition, preferably one that involved a good salary for myself and
Herr Gleissner, which, probably, would be received with more favor. He
added the flattering statement that the Royal Commission would be proud
to have me, the inventor of the art, in its employ, and thus to reward
my struggles in the name of the fatherland. The excellent man fulfilled
the expectations thus raised, and became my greatest benefactor and
founder of my fortune; for through him I won the prospect of an unvexed
old age, and was placed in a position where I did not need any longer to
consider my art merely as a livelihood. Everything useful that I have
invented since then, and I hope it is not inconsiderable, is due to the
serene and happy position in which I was placed through his goodness.
At the time I thought also that, if we were both employed by the Royal
Steuer-Kataster-Kommission, it would save Freiherr von Aretin the burden
of supporting us, without causing him damage, as according to the
preliminary promise of the Commission we should have time enough left to
manage his institution. So I agreed to assume supervision over the
Commission's printery, to give it my best knowledge, and give the
workmen complete instructions and training, for which there was to be a
salary for life of one thousand five hundred gulden for me and one
thousand gulden for my friend Gleissner, with the rank of Royal
Inspector of Lithography, and with the right to maintain and conduct our
own printery. My terms were graciously accepted, and in October, 1809,
we received our appointment.
Only in the beginning were my personal services especially necessary.
Later, as the workmen grew equal to their tasks, I found more and more
leisure for dedicating myself to inventing improvements. I was rather
fortunate in this endeavor, and the various processes invented since
1809 would now be generally known through the publication of many
interesting works, had Freiherr von Aretin not been forced to leave
Munich to assume his new duties in the Royal Service. This left my art
without his assistance, and our partnership reached its end just as it
was beginning to attain fruit. My own circumstances did not permit me to
continue the establishment on its former scale; therefore, Freiherr von
Aretin turned over part of it, especially the art-branches, to von
Manlich, the Director of the Royal Gallery, and another part to Herr
Zeller. The latter soon gave up the printing business as incompatible
with his other interests, but he did a great deal for domestic art and
industry later by opening a warehouse for its products, also by
publishing a paper and issuing many lithographic art productions.
I kept one or two presses for myself, and as I married the daughter of
the Royal Chief Auditor Versch in January, 1810, I hoped to teach my
wife to manage a small business. In the very beginning I obtained a
large order for passports from the Royal Commission of the Isar, which
kept the presses busy for a month. At the same time I contracted with
the Royal War Economy Council to furnish all their printing. Besides
this, I had many orders from another Royal Commission and from Herr
Falter, so that my little establishment was very busy. Unfortunately it
happened that I was not paid at once by the Royal Commission of the
Isar, but only after four years. Added to this, after some months I had
to support my workmen in idleness for several weeks, because there
happened to be no work for them. This gave my wife so ill an idea of the
business that she kept at me till I promised her to give up the whole
thing.
Madame Gleissner was not so timid. She offered to take over my men if I
would turn over to her the government work that I had. At first she did
very well, because just then orders came from many directions. She might
have made a great success, had her husband not been stricken with
paralysis, which rendered him so miserable that at last he lost his
mind. Then came the ever-growing competition and at last the government
bureau installed its own plant. Her daughter lost her eyesight almost
wholly at this time, so that the family fell into a woeful condition,
which would be still worse now if they were not sustained by faith in
the mercy and grace of our best of kings, who will surely reward their
efforts for lithography, which art, according to the belief of all
experts, will ever remain a beautiful flower in the shining wreath of
the noble Maximilian.
As soon as I did not need any longer to give up my time to earning a
mere livelihood, I began seriously to plan publication of my
lithographic text-book, the first number of which had appeared
previously and been well received. But the skill of the various
lithographers made noticeable advances every day, so that I was not
content with the specimen pages that had seemed so satisfactory a year
earlier. At last I fell under the delusion that it was absolutely vital
to my honor that everything that might appear in my text-book must
represent the _non plus ultra_ of the process. Therefore I decided to
suppress the first number entirely, because there were sample pages in
it that represented a style which had been done much better since then.
However, many obstacles opposed me. For instance, good artists are very
costly, especially if they must learn new methods and practice them. I
felt, also, that many of my inventions still demanded many improvements
before I could intrust them to the hands of any artists. Still, I hoped
finally to accomplish my plan for publishing a splendid work which
should be unique, because I invented improvements and perfections
daily. When my dear friend Andre came to Munich in 1811, I laid my
project before him and he was so taken with it that he offered his
cordial coöperation. We agreed that the work was to be done by
Frankfurter artists and printed there. But when I journeyed to Offenbach
some months later, I discovered that the right kind of artists were not
so easy to find as Andre had led me to hope. Some, who might have been
competent, demanded such exorbitant terms that the work would
necessarily have been published only at a huge loss. "Copper-etching,"
said they, "we understand. Stone-etching we must learn. The latter seems
to us, who are unpracticed in it, three times as difficult. Therefore it
is but fair that we shall be paid three times as much." This sort of
reasoning led me to return to Munich to print the work there.
Now two years passed with many experiments. Many a plate was made,
printed, and discarded because meantime I had found something better.
Then I lost my beloved wife in child-bed, and in my anguish over this
loss, irredeemable as I thought at the time, I forgot all my projects
till my second wife, a niece of our worthy Choir-Master Ritter von
Winter, reconciled me with Providence, notably through her truly
motherly behavior toward the son left behind by my first wife. I
considered it my duty now to publish my work, that in case of my death
their claims to honor should be established. Without this incentive, it
would have been much more indifferent to me what men might think of my
art or its inventor.
In 1816, Herr Andre came to Munich again, and I imparted to him many of
my recent inventions in regard to lithography. On this occasion we
decided ultimately which of our plates should be put into the work and
which should be discarded. I promised to get seriously to work and we
looked forward so confidently to the completion of the entire
publication that Herr Andre circulated a preliminary notice of it in the
Easter-Messe at Leipsic, whither he went after leaving Munich.
Despite this, there came many delays, the chief one being caused by my
meeting Herr Gerold, book-dealer and printer of Vienna, who invited me
to establish a printery for him. As my presence in Vienna would be
needed for only three months, I believed that this would cause no delay
in the publication of the text-book, because the plates ordered from the
Munich artists could be completed during that time, while I could
furnish the text as well in Vienna as in Munich. But I had the
misfortune of becoming seriously ill soon after reaching Vienna. A great
weakness remained as result, and this made it impossible for me to
undertake the return voyage in the bad weather that marked the winter of
1816-17.
Lithography did not progress particularly with Herr Gerold during my
stay, because he could not obtain the franchise, though he had
petitioned for it a year ago. The greatest blame for this was due to
Herr Steiner's opposition. This man, who had done but little for the art
in the entire time during which he enjoyed the exclusive Austrian
franchise that I had turned over to him, did this from pure ill-will,
because he had suffered similar ill-luck, as he said.
So Gerold could not establish so complete a printery as I wished,
without going into expenses based on an uncertainty. However, various
drawings were made that served to show art-lovers what could be done
with lithography. It would be easy to perfect this art immensely in
Vienna, because there is no lack of excellent artists. Among those who
interested themselves at the very beginning in Herr Gerold's undertaking
were Herr Colonel von Aurach, Herr Captain Kohl, and Herr Kunike, the
drawing-master for the family of Prince von Schwarzenberg. They
convinced themselves with many experiments that lithography was
eminently suitable for the easy reproduction of many styles of drawing,
and recommended the method to all their acquaintances. Through the
experiments of Herr Kunike I gained the conviction that one could print
true originals by using a method of touching up the impressions.
The crayon method in combination with one or two tint plates is the
method that is easiest for the artist to handle. Now this method is very
difficult to print, demanding great practice if good, strong, and clear
impressions are to be produced. Since there are as yet no complete
printeries where an artist can have his own plates printed without
danger of damage, there is nothing left except to print them himself,
which causes many imperfect impressions that must be destroyed for the
credit of the artist. Herr Kunike had this experience; but he took his
imperfect impressions, when they were not entirely spoiled, and worked
them over with black crayon. It developed that twelve impressions could
be so well touched up by hand that they would fittingly pass as
originals, in the time which would be required to copy a single picture
properly. As this treatment of illustrations produces their value only
by merit of the final finishing, they may be considered as being the
same as copies that are made by an artist of his own work, wherein it
happens often that the copy turns out better than the original.
Just as I was preparing to leave Vienna I received several numbers of
the _Anzeiger für Kunst und Gewerbfleiss_, in which Herr Direktor von
Schlichtegroll, General Secretary of the Royal Bavarian Academy of
Sciences, had inserted several letters suggesting an inquiry into the
invention of lithography. He had used the information obtained from my
brothers and from other inhabitants of Munich. On my arrival there I
visited him at once to thank him for his patriotic endeavors, and to
make some corrections of the story told by him. I had the fortune to win
him as a steady friend, who became continually interested in giving my
work a greater field.
The completion of this text-book is due to his steadfast encouragement.
He furnished me with the opportunity to meet many worthy men and also to
demonstrate my many improvements before the Royal Academy of Sciences,
the Polytechnical Union, and at last even before their majesties, our
most gracious King and his most highly venerated spouse, that
illustrious connoisseur and protectress of the arts. Never to be
forgotten by me will be the moment when the gracious applause of the
royal pair rewarded me for all the exertions of my life. Oh! If only
human life were not so limited, if it were granted to me to execute only
one tenth part of my designs, I would make myself worthy of this great
honor by making many another useful invention! But the time passes
swiftly during our helpless wishing and striving; and when twenty or
thirty years have been lived, there remains for us only amazement at
beholding how little has been done of all that which glowing
imagination and fiery energy painted as being so easy to carry out.
When I saw before me the first successful impressions from a stone, and
conceived the plan of making the invention useful for myself, I did not
think that it would demand the greatest part of my life. Rather, because
it seemed to be a cheap process, I considered it merely a first step
toward putting me into a position where I would be able to make
inventions far more useful and important. I must, however, count myself
fortunate among thousands, because my invention received such thorough
recognition during my lifetime, and because I myself was able to bring
it to a degree of perfection such as other inventions generally attained
only after many years and long after the inventor himself was dead.
Herr von Manlich, the Director of the Royal Gallery, has had his skilled
pupils, Strixner and Pilotti, copy many collections in the Royal Drawing
Cabinet (Königliche Zeichnungs Kabinett), and many of these sheets are
so good that competent critics have declared them to be perfect
facsimiles.
But on the whole the publication of the Royal Gallery of Paintings is
still more excellent and has aroused general attention, which would be
even greater if the printers had been as expert as the artists were.
Many of these pages would leave nothing to be desired if the pictures
appeared on the paper in perfection equal to the perfection of the
drawings on the stone.
The method used for these illustrations is the crayon method, with one
or more tint plates. It is the easiest method for the artists because it
demands little previous experience. To give it its correct emphasis,
however, one must know especially how to get the best effect out of the
tint plates. If this is done just right, and if, of course, the drawing
bears the impress of a masterly hand, and if the printer understands his
art, the impression will be perfectly like an original drawing, so that
the most skilled etcher in copper hardly can attain the same effect.
Therefore this method, which has the further advantage of being a quick
one, is excellently well adapted for copying paintings.
Hereby I wish to express my deepest gratitude publicly to the worthy
Herr Direktor von Manlich and his industrious pupils for the service
they have done for the fame of lithography by utilizing my inventions.
To their labors, as well as to those of Herr Professor Mitterer, is due
the ever-growing sympathy and interest of the public.
Herr Mitterer now has attained such perfection, especially in the simple
crayon method, that many of his productions probably will remain the
_non plus ultra_ of this method. Lithography also owes to his unresting
energy the triumph of having been become the mother of many useful works
of instruction, which are so cheap that they only require the active
work of a good art-dealer or book-dealer to become widely circulated.
Besides this, Herr Mitterer is the inventor of the so-called cylinder or
pilot-wheel press, which he has improved so much lately that it does
almost everything that one can demand from a perfect press in point of
power, speed, and ease of operation.
Since 1809, I have dedicated myself almost uninterruptedly to
improvements, and to the work of reducing all manipulation and processes
in all branches to their simple elementary principles. Thus some of my
earlier inventions--such as transfers from paper which has been
inscribed with fatty inks, and the transfers from new and old books and
copper-plate impressions--have been brought to a high degree of
excellence through my manifold experiments, so that one can make
lithographic stereotypes in the easiest manner.
Furthermore I have made such progress in color printing that, besides
pictures illuminated with colors, I can also produce pictures quite
similar to oil paintings, so that nobody can discover that they have
been printed, because they possess all the distinguishing points of
paintings.
At the same time I have invented a new method for printing pictures,
wall tapestry, playing-cards, and even cotton, which enables two men to
make two thousand impressions of the size of a sheet of letter-paper
daily, even though the picture may contain a hundred or more colors.
Incredible as this may seem, I surely shall produce extraordinary and
amazing proofs of this in a few years if I remain alive and well.
Among the other methods that I have invented since this time the most
excellent are some aqua tint processes, the spatter-work method, the
intaglio crayon method, the conversion of the relief method into
intaglio and vice versa, and the machine-written text for editions de
luxe.
Among other things I also sought to remedy the difficulty which arises
from the great dependence on the skill and industry of the printers.
Therefore I planned a printing-machine wherein the dampening and inking
of the stones should be done not by hands but by the mechanism of the
press itself, which, in addition, could be operated by water and thus
work almost without human intervention. With this invention I believed
that I had set my art on the pinnacle of completion; and when in 1817 I
exhibited a model of this press (which also was adapted by me for
utilizing the principles of stone or chemical printing on metal plates)
before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Munich, I was so fortunate as to
receive its golden medal in sign of universal approval.
But the most important of all my inventions since my employment in the
service of the Royal Government was, without question, the invention of
a sufficient substitute for the natural limestone plates, which often
incurred well-founded censure because of their unevenness, weight, and
fragility, and have the further fault of demanding a great deal of
storage room.
Before the Royal Academy of Sciences, and also before the Polytechnical
Society of Bavaria, I demonstrated that chemical printing could be
utilized with advantage on metal plates; but that still more useful was
a composition of artificial stone which could be painted on metal, wood,
stone, and even on plain paper or linen, and used in all processes
exactly like the natural Solenhofen stone.
The countless experiments that I have made in the past four years with
this substitute (or, as some call it, stone-paper), in order to prove
its usefulness under all circumstances, have filled me with the absolute
conviction that it replaces the natural stone completely without having
the many faults that in the nature of the case are inseparable from the
use of the latter. In many respects it is far superior. The fragility of
the Solenhofen stone requires the use of thick slabs for printing. If
the impression is to be letter-sheet size, the stone must be at least
one and one half inches thick if it is not to crack under pressure. If
the stone is to be used for more than one job, the thickness must be two
to three inches. To be sure, it can be ground and used over again some
hundreds of times, a valuable consideration in view of the capital
invested in a stone. But such a stone weighs from sixty to eighty
pounds, sometimes more, and occupies considerable space. Add the
investment necessary for laying in any great number of stones, and it
becomes a difficult matter financially to undertake work that requires
that the stones be held for a number of years, to be used for new
impressions according to the sales of the work. Therefore it is
necessary, generally, to print a maximum quantity at once, so that the
stones may be ground and used for new work.
If the stones are of thickness correctly proportioned to their area, the
danger of cracking under the press is fairly remote; still, it does
happen occasionally that a stone incurs damage through clumsiness of
workmen. It can occur also through careless warming, or through sharp
frost. In such cases even a strong stone will crack, especially if the
workmen apply undue pressure.
Besides, the necessary stones are not to be found in all places, so that
the cost of transportation prevents the establishment of lithographic
shops in many regions.
All these objections are overcome by the invention of stone-paper. The
material advantages of it are as follows: (1) The cost is much smaller
than that of a stone of equal size. (2) The weight is inconsiderable; a
plate of letter-sheet size weighs scarcely four ounces. (3) Hundreds of
such plates piled on each other require scarcely as much space as a
single stone, and can, therefore, be stored or shipped easily. (4) They
resist the most powerful press better than do stone, copper, and even
iron plates. Their inner elasticity supports the most extreme pressure
without alteration if only they are handled properly. (5) The
application of fatty inks, and also engraving with the steel graver is
easier. Indeed, because of the great toughness of the stone-paper, the
engraving process approaches copper engraving more closely. (6) Inking
and printing are easier, and demand no such powerful pressure, because
the artificial stone receives and imparts color more readily, than does
the natural stone. (7) Finally, they are so excellent for all methods of
printing that it is possible to reproduce the original plates at will
merely by transferring a fresh imprint to another plate. And this can be
done with such accuracy that none of these plates can be distinguished
from the original, so that the stone-paper surely must become of
enormous importance for stereotyping in the book-printing trade.
These advantages, and others to be described on suitable occasion,
elevate this invention unquestionably to the highest importance in the
art of chemical printing, despite all that may have been said recently
by a certain writer whose lack of knowledge forbade correct judgment.
The matter already has attained a degree of perfection that makes every
further improvement unnecessary, nay, almost impossible.
My many employments, mostly caused by the publication of this text-book,
thus far have prevented the erection of my own manufactory for making
these artificial stone-plates or stone-paper. I hope to do it soon, and
then everybody can convince himself of the truth of my assertions, if he
will use the material according to my instructions.
This invention will facilitate the introduction of lithography in all
places, because one can make the stones himself. However, lithography
has expanded very considerably in its present form, and has been brought
into use in the foremost cities of Europe. For instance, it was
introduced into France and England, first by Herr Andre, in latter days
by the Count von Lasterie in Paris and Herr Ackermann in London, being
utilized for many kinds of printed work. In Berlin, Herr Major von
Reiche has erected a great institution. In Petersburg the art has
existed for some years, and is being especially well cultivated now by
Freiherr von Schilling. The art has entered even Philadelphia, and, more
extraordinarily, Astrakan, and, so far as I can learn, has been welcomed
heartily.
I desire that soon it shall be spread over the whole world, bringing
much good to humanity through many excellent productions, and that it
may work toward man's greater culture, but never be misused for evil
purposes. This grant the Almighty! Then may the hour be blessed in which
I invented it!
SECTION II
TEXT-BOOK OF PRINTING FROM THE STONE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
EXPLANATION OF THE PRINCIPLES AND THE PECULIARITIES OF STONE-PRINTING
AND OF CHEMICAL-PRINTING IN GENERAL
PART I
General objects and principles governing--
(1) the stone.
(2) the ink, crayon, etching surface and color.
(3) the acids and other preparing materials.
(4) the necessary tools.
(5) the paper.
(6) the presses.
PART II
Enumeration and description of the various processes and particular
objects in manipulating them, such as:--
RELIEF PROCESS--
to which belong--
(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 similar to the
Scraped style, while the other is done in the usual way with
the brush.
(6) Spatter-Work.
(7) Touche drawing.
(8) Color printing with several plates.
(9) Gold and silver print.
INTAGLIO PROCESS--
(1) Carved or engraved.
(2) Etched.
(3) Drawn with prepared ink; with spattered aquatint.
(4) Aquatint in copper engraved style, and with etching ground.
(5) Aquatint through crayon ground.
(6) Intaglio crayon through tracing.
(7) Touche drawing with etching color and citric acid.
MIXED METHOD: RELIEF AND INTAGLIO UNITED--
(1) Pen drawing combined with engraving.
(2) Intaglio drawing with relief tint.
(3) Intaglio and relief with several plates.
(4) Transformation of relief into intaglio, and vice versa.
APPENDIX
(1) Printing simultaneously with water colors and oil colors.
(2) Simultaneous chemical and mechanical printing.
(3) Application of the stone for cotton-printing through wiping--a
unique printing method.
(4) Color print through wiping.
(5) Oil painting print through transfers.
(6) Stone-paper.
(7) Applying the chemical printing process to metal plates, etc.
INTRODUCTION
Printing from stone is a branch of a new process, different in
fundamental principle from all others, namely, the chemical process.
Heretofore there have been two leading printing processes for
manifolding writings and drawings, one working with characters in
relief, the other with sunken characters.
Of the first kind is the ordinary book-printing, in which the characters
are made of metal or wood in such form that only those lines and points
are elevated that are to take color, everything else being depressed.
The wooden forms for cotton-printing are made thus also.
Of the second kind are all copper and zinc plates, and the cotton-print
process with copper plates or cylinders. In this method the lines and
points to be printed are depressed, being either engraved, etched, or
stamped.
As is well known, the first method of printing is as follows: The
letters, which are all at the same elevation and, therefore, furnish a
plane surface, are inked with a leather ball, stuffed with horsehair.
As the ball is so firm and elastic that it can touch only the
elevated parts, these alone can take the color, which adheres because
of its sticky nature. The same is true of the carved wood used in
cotton-printing, with only the difference that, instead of rubbing with
a leather ball, the wooden plate itself is laid on a cushion covered
with the color, and then, being placed face down on the cloth, is
hammered gently to produce the imprint.
In copper and zinc printing the method is reversed. In order to force
the color into the depressed parts, which alone are to be printed, the
entire plate is coated with color, and then the elevated surface is
cleansed again carefully. The cleaning rag cannot reach the depressed
grooves, so that more or less color adheres to these according to their
various depths. Under the powerful press, which forces the paper into
all the engraved parts, this color transfers itself and thus gives the
desired impression.
It is evident that both methods rest on purely mechanical principles:
book-printing being based on the fact that the color adheres only on
those places that it can reach, and copper-plate printing depending on
the fact that the color remains only in those places from which it
cannot be removed by cleansing.
It is different with the chemical print. This does not depend on either
elevation or depression of the design. It depends on the fact that the
design is coated with a preparation of such nature that afterward the
printing color, which is made from a related substance, adheres because
of its chemical similarity; and furthermore, because all parts of the
plate that are to remain white, have been so treated that they repel the
color. These two purely chemical objects are attained fully with the new
process. Daily experience proves that all fatty bodies, such as oil,
butter, tallow, fish oils, etc., and all such as easily dissolve in oil,
like wax, resin, etc., refuse to unite with any watery substance without
the aid of some third body that will bring about such union. The chief
solvent for this purpose is alkali, which, under proper manipulation,
always produces a sort of soap that then is soluble in water. Sometimes,
to be sure, an apparent union can be produced by violent shaking or
mixing, without the use of the alkali, but at the first opportunity the
fatty substances separate themselves again from the watery ones.
It is on this fact that the entire method of the new process is based.
It is termed chemical printing with perfect propriety, as the reason why
a fatty color, say, linseed oil varnish, will adhere only on the
designed parts of the plate and is repelled by the rest of the surface,
is due to the chemical properties of the materials.
It might be maintained that in the other forms of printing, color
adheres from the same reason. This is true, to be sure; for it is a
general law that water and oil will adhere to all bodies that are dry.
But it is not the case with these fluids mutually; and in this fact lies
the unique difference between the older and the new processes. A dry
plate would take color over its entire surface. If, however, it is
dampened, it will take oil color only on those places that are in a
condition opposite to dampness. Therefore, the repelling of the color
from those parts that are to remain white is the novelty.
It must not be imagined, however, that to print chemically it suffices
to dampen certain parts of the plate and to coat others with fatty
substance. With most of the materials available for printing, mere water
does not suffice to produce a sufficiently repelling obstacle between
the plate and the color.
With flinty and clayey bodies,--for example, glass, porcelain, slate,
etc.,--one can manage with mere water; but then the slight adherence of
the fatty color to the plate produces an opposite difficulty, by
preventing any large number of impressions. Still, by using very firm
and readily drying fatty substances, such as linseed oil varnish dried
with litharge of silver it is possible, in case of need, to succeed
fairly well.
But with such bodies as attract the color powerfully, such as all
metals, wood, limestone, artificial stone-paper, etc., it is necessary
so to treat all the parts of the plate that are to remain white that
they attain an especial resistance to color, and thus change their
natures, so to speak.
That this is possible under certain circumstances and with the proper
means, with all bodies belonging to this class, I have proved by many
experiments, and I shall describe the methods in this book.
Thus the new process is not to be used only on limestone, but is
applicable to metal, etc.; and stone-printing or lithography is to be
considered only as a branch of general chemical printing. However, as
this book is to teach mainly lithography, I will occupy myself chiefly
with it.
Among the bodies available for chemical printing, limestone maintains an
eminent place. Not only has it an especial property of uniting with
fats,--sucking them in and holding them,--but it has, also, the same
propensity for taking all fluids that repel fats. Indeed, its surface
unites so thoroughly with many of the latter that it forms a chemical
union with them, becoming practically impenetrable for oil colors and
remaining constant thereafter in repelling them so that they cannot
adhere perfectly. Therefore when a plate thus prepared is dry and
covered entirely with oil color, it still remains an easy matter to wash
it completely, using merely water for the purpose.
This good property, combined with the low cost and the ease of obtaining
the stone in Bavaria; then the advantage that it is easily polished and
prepared; the further advantage that a stone of medium thickness can be
ground as often as a hundred times and utilized for new work--all these
properties combined made me willing to overlook a few faults, such as
their weight, great volume, frequent unevenness of quality, and lastly
the occasional danger of cracking. Thus I came to use these stones as
the principal means for making my countless experiments, whose happy
result has been to elevate stone-printing to an art by itself.
Having stated the process and the character of this form of printing, it
remains only to say a few words about its value.
With every new invention there arises the question if it is useful, and
if so, in how far, for science, arts, and industry. Therefore all who
have no sufficient knowledge of lithography, will ask justly: What is
its value? What advantages does it give that are not to be found in any
other forms of printing?
To answer this, let me say the following merely in advance till later
descriptions of the various processes will convince in themselves.
It is the nature of earthly being and of human imperfection that rarely
is anything found that combines in itself everything to be wished for
and required. So it may be said of stone-printing that it makes neither
book-printing nor copper-plate printing entirely superfluous. It is
possible that in the future, by perfecting the presses, lithography may
equal book-printing in point of speed, as it does not now; but the
convenience of the latter, enabling the printer, by merely setting cast
characters side by side, to do with speed, accuracy, and symmetry what
the writer can hardly do with all his skill and industry, gives
book-printing its own eminent value. When, however, we come to many
things produced hitherto by book-printing, such as statistical tables,
letters, circulars, letters of exchange, bills of lading, visiting-cards
and addresses, and other similar work, we find that these can be
produced more conveniently, more readily, more cheaply, and faster and
handsomer with lithography.
As to copper-printing: in the future, as lithography extends, there
probably will remain an advantage with the copper in the case of only
two styles, the engraving done with the engraving needle, and the
etching, the latter being worked up with the graver and the cold needle.
In this respect, however, the skill of the artist must be taken into
account, for a good man can produce better work on stone, even in those
two styles, than a less skillful man can produce on copper. We can
declare the same of the stipple style in copper, when done in the style
of Herr Bartolozzi, or even like the very foremost of the copper
engravers in this style, Herr John of Vienna.
All other methods (and even these three if done with less care or skill
on copper) must yield place to a good design on stone; especially if one
takes into account the ease of execution, the lesser need for skill, the
greater speed of printing, and the almost countless impressions that are
possible.
For instance, printing music from the stone has a decided advantage over
zinc plates, both because of smaller cost and greater beauty. It is
easier to produce all kinds of script on stone, both with fatty inks and
with the engraving needle. Therefore lithography serves excellently for
charts and similar work, which can be done at least three times faster
on stone than on copper.
If copper-printing is to reach a high degree of perfection, the printing
itself must be done by very excellent workmen. Indeed, some persons
allege that the very best German copper-plate printers do not yet equal
the Parisians. Printing from stone is not so difficult, and only a few
particular methods demand especial care or unusual knowledge. Because of
the greater ease of inking, the speed of stone-printing may be assumed
to be at least five times as great, often ten times, and especially so
when large plates are to be printed. Besides, it is much easier to make
corrections on stone than on copper and zinc.
From all this it appears that lithography makes it much easier to write
and design and then to print swiftly and produce any desired number of
impressions, of all those works that heretofore could be produced only
on copper or zinc, providing they do not demand the very greatest degree
of delicacy, strength, and sharpness obtainable with copper; in a word,
so long as it is not vital to attain the utmost possible artistic
beauty. Further, most of these works done on stone, by only average
artists and printers, usually are more beautiful than if they had been
done by the same men in copper or zinc.
This property alone gives lithography a preëminent value, the more so as
no great expense is incurred in establishing a plant. But in addition to
this, there are several art methods peculiar to it, which cannot be
imitated by book-printing or copper-print, and which make it possible
for almost every writer or artist to manifold his works without any
especial skill.
I will mention now only the crayon process, which enables every artist
or painter to make several thousand impressions of his original
drawings; also the transfer method, by means of which all that is
written or drawn with fatty ink on ordinary paper can be transferred to
the stone, giving countless faithful impressions. This latter process is
particularly useful for government bureaus, and is being used already
with great profit.
All this I believe that I can claim for lithography with fullest
confidence, and I hope that everybody who becomes sufficiently
conversant with it will share my belief. Thus, besides the properties
of the art, we have stated its uses, and I proceed to the real
instructions, through which I hope to make good artists and printers on
stone.
PART I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
CHAPTER I
OF THE STONES
I
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 to Kellheim; hence the name
Kellheimer plates, presumably because in past times the stone was
quarried there first, or else found in its best quality. Now the
Kellheimer quarry is exhausted, and the trade in the stones has
transferred itself to Solenhofen, a village in the judicial district of
Mannheim, three hours distant from Neuberg-on-the-Danube. All the
inhabitants of Solenhofen are quarrymen, and the entire surrounding
country seems to have a surplus of the stone, so that even with the
greatest demand no scarcity is to be feared for centuries.
When the upper layer of earth is removed to the depth of six to ten feet
in Solenhofen, the stones are found in strata lying horizontally on each
other. First come strata of brittle stone, which often are composed of
hundreds of plates as thin as paper. With proper care, each plate can be
loosened and lifted whole. These layers are useless, being too brittle,
and yet being too firm and not white enough to permit their possible use
as chalk.
The Solenhofen stone consists chemically mostly of lime earth and
carbonate. It is almost wholly soluble in nitric and other acids, the
carbonate being liberated in gaseous form and disappearing. Since the
various kinds of marble have almost the same component parts, one might
suppose that marble should be available for lithography. But the many
dark, uneven colors of marble and chiefly the many cracks and veins make
considerable difficulty. However, I have found many evenly colored
greenish, gray, bluish, and brownish Bavarian and Tyrolean marbles very
useful for some methods, especially because of their superior hardness.
Still, the Solenhofen stone will retain the advantage because of its
light color and its greater cheapness.
The white Parian or Carrara marble is still lighter in color, to be
sure, and really is rather useful for pen and crayon work. But though in
part it is harder, on the whole it is much more porous and not so finely
grained as the Solenhofen stone, and therefore not at all available for
the intaglio method.
Since lithography began to arouse general interest, there have been
attempts to find a stone similar to the Solenhofen, and there has been
some fair success in France, Italy, England, and lately in the Kingdom
of Prussia. With the enormous masses of limestone which cover the
surface of the earth, it is not unlikely that this stone will be found
in many places, either in layers of plates one, two, or more inches
thick, or in great blocks which can be cut into plates.
In the Solenhofen stones one layer is not as good as another, and even
in the same layer there may be a decided difference. Therefore, if one
would produce perfectly beautiful work, it is necessary to obtain
selected and perfect stones. This should be stipulated beforehand with
the quarrymen, who now know pretty well how the best stones should be
constituted.
A good stone must have the following properties:--
(1) _The proper thickness._ Thickness must be proportionate to the size.
Smaller plates will resist the pressure of printing even if they are not
so thick as the larger ones must be. But it is best to buy no stone less
than one and one half or more than three and one half inches thick,
because the thinner ones will not bear frequent grinding and the thicker
ones are too heavy and inconvenient, besides taking up too much room.
The best thickness of a stone is two to two and one half inches.
(2) _Good mass._ There are soft and hard stones. Sometimes the same
stone is hard above and soft underneath, or the reverse. Often, also, a
stone may consist of several thin and unequal layers. In the latter
case, if the union is good and the layers are not easily separated, it
will make no difference, so long as the stone is good in other respects.
On the whole, however, it may be assumed that the harder stones are the
best for all methods, so long as their mass is entirely uniform and they
are not marred, as is the case with many, with white dots and patches.
Then, to be sure, they are not worth much for any process, and at best
can be used only for pen designs or for such of the intaglio processes
where the lines need no particular sharpness. Such stones, generally
gray, very hard, with softer, somewhat lighter patches or specks, are
very hard to grind evenly because the softer parts are most powerfully
attacked by the grinding material and become depressed. This produces
the following defects:--
(_a_) In pen work, the pen will catch often, whenever it comes to such a
place. This, however, is not so important: but
(_b_) In the crayon method there will be defects and lights in the
shadings on the softer places, which are very hard to correct.
(_c_) In the etched or engraved methods, the needle will sink in much
deeper when it passes over such softer spots, making a deeper and
broader line which injures the clearness of the drawing. In etching,
also, the softer places are more affected by the acid; and it is better,
therefore, to use a soft stone whose entire surface is uniform, than to
have a stone that is hard but uneven.
A very soft stone cracks easily in the press, unless it consists of
several layers, the lower of which are hard. But it is easier to
engrave, and as a rule gives blacker impressions, because it sucks more
color in, and holds it because of its greater porosity. Printing,
however, is somewhat more difficult, because these stones take dirt
readily; nor is it possible to get so many impressions. They are not
useful for crayon work because the finest shadings are too easily etched
away; and pen work is difficult on them, because the steel pen easily
cuts into the stone, fills its point with fine dust, and thus gives no
ink flow. This softest stone in Solenhofen generally looks yellow, or
is marbled with red and white or has many yellow veins.
Even those stones whose uniformity, thickness, and hardness make them
best for all methods, often have defects, such as so-called glass spots
or tiny, sometimes invisible holes, broad veins and cracks. All these
must be avoided when selecting stone. Very small deep veins, which often
are fine as hairs, yellowish and grayish spots, impressions of fossil
plants and fishes, etc., are not harmful. It is rare to find a stone as
large as a sheet of note-paper that is entirely free from these little
defects.
(3) The form of the stones also is to be considered, and must be
selected according to need. To be sure, a small design can be drawn on a
large stone; but apart from the inconvenience, the construction of the
press demands that the stone be not much larger than the drawing.
However, at the end where the impression begins and stops, there must be
at least an inch margin to give sufficient room for the roller to take
hold, as will be explained more particularly later.
When one has to print small things like visiting-cards, etc., it will
not be profitable to use large stones, especially if they are to be
saved for future use. Small stones of the size of an octavo sheet are
better. Therefore it will be wise to have stones cut to various sizes in
the beginning. It would be well also that one of the printers, or the
polisher, strive to attain skill in cutting stones to size. Sometimes
polishing discloses defects in a stone, making it useless for a design
of any size. But it is possible to cut it up into many small ones that
are perfect. Sometimes a stone cracks under the press or breaks through
accident. Skill in cutting will enable one to make small and good stones
out of the pieces.
It is essential for good work in the press that the stones be cut very
true. The stones that are used for flooring in churches, etc., usually
are cut so that the upper face is larger than the lower. This is done to
make them set better in the mortar and to enable the stone-cutters to
fit them closely together on the top. But this must not be done with
stones for printing, because such stones could not be tightened properly
in the press and would lift during the printing. Printing-stones must be
cut absolutely true vertically. Indeed, in work where several plates
are to be used to make one complete impression, and where steel
guide-points in the frame are used instead of laying the paper on the
plate, it is beneficial to cut the stones conically, so that the base is
one fourth inch greater than the top. The plate can be tightened better
and is less likely to be moved from its place during the impressions.
Despite their hardness the stones are brittle, and a single light but
sudden blow with any hard body, such as a steel tool, may cause a crack
in the thickest stone. It is necessary to exercise great care to avoid
all shocks.
This property of the stone is used in Solenhofen to cut the stones
according to desire. A small hammer of hard steel, weighing scarcely two
ounces, is used. Its end is somewhat like a stone-chisel, but not nearly
so sharp. With this hammer, which is set on a thin handle two or three
feet long, the workman strikes light but very swift blows along the line
of desired cleavage, each tap being about an inch from the preceding
one. The stone is so laid that its greater part is free, resting on
nothing. This light operation is sufficient to cleave the largest
stones.
The cleavage is not always uniform and true. Therefore the stone usually
is finished with a sharp stone-chisel. It is possible also to divide a
stone as desired by supporting it at both ends so that there is nothing
under the part to be split, and then cutting along the line with a
chisel of hardened steel, not too sharp, which is tapped lightly with a
light hammer. The varying sound tells at once when the stone cracks, and
then a few light taps with the hammer on the other side suffice to
separate it. Before one attains the necessary skill, however, he will
smash many a stone. Therefore it is not advisable to try this on a stone
that has a design on it, for a single incorrect or over-heavy blow often
will split the stone in the wrong direction. Blows that are too light,
on the other hand, often make it almost impossible in the end to cause a
cleavage along the desired lines.
II
POLISHING
The stone plates that come from Solenhofen, even if polished according
to stipulations, rarely are available for printing, but must be
specially polished by one who understands the work thoroughly.
The first requisite for this is a straightedge of iron or brass, as true
as possible. This ruler must be laid on the stone in various directions,
and the lithographer must note all parts where there is space between
the straightedge and the stone. The greater the space, the greater the
unevenness of the stone; and those that show especial unevenness should
be set aside from those that have little.
When this has been done, the very uneven stones must be ground with a
coarse sandstone and plenty of water applied to the elevated places till
the straightedge can be applied in all directions without showing any
material interstices. Then these ground stones may be placed with the
others that were fairly even in the beginning.
Now we take one of these stones, and lay it on a strong, firm table, the
best being one to be described later. Finely grained sand is sprinkled
over its surface. In the absence of sand, a substitute can be made by
powdering a common sandstone of the kind used for coarse grindstones. A
spoonful of water is poured over this. A little soap may be mixed with
the sand. It facilitates the grinding and makes the sand take hold of
the stone better. Now another stone is laid on the first one, and is
moved back and forth continually in all directions. The sand and water
must be renewed often. Thus both stones, the upper and lower, will be
ground simultaneously, and very evenly and true, if the work is done
right.
One must take care never to draw the upper stone far beyond the lower
one, because that would throw the centre of gravity of the upper plate
too near its ends, as a result of which the upper plate would become
concave and the lower plate convex. To avoid this defect, the upper
plate should be moved around only in small circles. It is good also to
change the plates around frequently, so that the upper shall be the
lower. Another good plan is not to use two stones of equal size, but to
take for the upper stone one only half as large as the lower. It is
necessary also that the straightedge be applied frequently. The stone
must always be cleansed thoroughly before this test.
Once one has the proper experience, it is possible to tell by mere touch
if the plates have been sufficiently ground. So long as they still have
uneven spots, a certain resistance is noticeable, so strongly sometimes
that it is impossible to move the upper plate further without lifting it
and sprinkling new sand. Sometimes this friction is so great that manual
strength does not suffice to separate the stones, especially if they
happen to dry. If tools are used to separate them, it happens often that
pieces are torn from the stones, because they adhere so mightily. In
this case a very simple and convenient remedy is the best. An ordinary
table-knife is inserted gently and then tapped very lightly, when the
stones will separate at once.
Whenever sand is applied, water must be applied also, but not too much,
as in that case it would only wash away the sand. Here, too, practice
must teach the exact proportions.
From the stone-cutter's work, as well as from the primary grinding with
sandstone, the plates will have visible furrows and scratches made by
the coarser grains of sand. Under the polishing all these disappear bit
by bit, and there appears a fine grain, consisting entirely of fine
dots; and this is the finer in proportion as the sand is crushed by the
process of polishing and also according as less fresh sand has been
used.
When the marks of the sand have vanished completely, it is fairly
certain that the stones are polished sufficiently. To make sure, the
straightedge can be applied again. It must not be imagined, however,
that it is necessary or possible to polish a plate so perfectly that
there will be absolutely no spaces between any part of its surface and
the straightedge. A perfect and mathematically level plane surface is
hardly likely ever to be produced. If the stone is almost level, and the
unevennesses do not exceed the thickness of letter-paper, it is quite
sufficient.
Although this sort of polishing, with two plates at once, is not used
in all lithographies, some preferring to polish with small pieces of
sandstone, I give it here as the best, because it demands little skill
and is quicker, so that one can grind off four stones in the time
required for one under other methods.
In this matter of smoothness of the stone it is impossible to be too
careful. The beauty of the imprint depends upon it. Errors in the
polishing cause great trouble afterward. Therefore the manager of a
lithography must pay close attention to this work. In the Lithographic
Institute in Berlin the rule has been adopted that no engraver shall
accept a plate that he has not found thoroughly good, under penalty of
reimbursing the printers for all extra trouble and work.
This first polishing, however, is only the general preparation of the
stone. Afterward they must be polished and prepared especially for each
particular method, as will be explained in the proper place.
III
SORTING AND STORING
When the plates have been polished, they are cleansed with water and
sorted for their various uses. Now it is easier to see just what quality
the stones have, their defects, and consequently, what work they are
best for. Those not uniform are best for coarse pen work. Those of
uneven coloring, but hard and thick mass, can be used for the finer pen
drawings, for etching and engraving, or for transfer work. For crayon
work the clearest and most evenly colored stones of extreme hardness are
to be selected.
They can be stored anywhere that is not too damp and not too much
exposed to winter cold. Dry cold does not hurt them; but if they are wet
through and through and then freeze, they will crack. In constant
dampness, too, saltpetre and other salts enter them and they crumble. In
clean water they do not undergo any changes.
I will describe the storage of etched and designed stones later.
If the stones are to be used after being stored in any damp place, they
should be kept for several days in a temperate and dry place till they
have dried thoroughly, as otherwise they are not easy to work in any
style. This is not necessary if their place of storage has been
perfectly dry.