Intaglio Etching Using Corrosive Salt Bath Solutions: A Legacy From The Clasics

Abstract

The industrial and technological development of the 20th Century brought with it a notable increase and transformation of artistic languages, which also affected etching, by expanding engravers’ resources in an unthinkable way in previous generations. Recently, however, questions and reflections have surfaced about the sustainability of the processes and materials used, and their implications on the artist’s health and on the environment have been evaluated. Some of the new low-risk engraving methods and materials are not so new, but they are improvements and updates of ancient methods used by ancient engravers: the incorporation of saline mordants to substitute the acids that were used by engravers in etching in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and the formulations of the same that we find in the treaties of Benvenuto Cellini, Abraham Boose or Manuel de Rueda, among others.