1864 Antique Astronomy Print Planets Uranus & Neptune

The print is a wood engraving printed in 1864.

The sheet measures 11 1/2 X 8 inches and is in good condition aside from age toning.

The image is titled "Uranus & Neptune."

The print is a full page illustration from Asa Smith's "Illustrated Astronomy" published by Chase & Nichols in Boston in 1864.

There is text printed on the reverse side.

This is an antique print guaranteed to be over 145 years old.

Buyer to pay $3.50 postage and handling in US; $5.50 for Canada; and $7.50 international - for any amount of prints.

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Wood engravings are a form of relief printmaking. They start as a block of wood that would make a solid shape if printed. Areas of wood are cut away to leave the final image. Two other common types of relief printmaking are the woodcut and linoprint. The wood engraving block is cut across the end grain of the block. In this they differ from the side grain blocks made for woodcuts. The depth of the block is normally "type high" and links wood-engraving to its history of illustration, when blocks and type would have been set together to print a page. Wood Engraving tool developed from metal engraving tools. When the image has been engraved onto the block ink is applied to its surface with a roller, paper is laid across the surface and presure is applied with a printing press or burnishing tool. As the nineteenth century progressed, wood engraving was used increasingly in periodicals. It was a practical means of illustration because, unlike steel- and copper- plate engraving, wood engraving did not have to be printed separately on a single leaf. Instead, engravings could be integrated with text and on both sides of a leaf. This was helpful in pictorial reporting, where printers could incorporate engravings with a particular story on the same page. The Illustrated London News, Punch, and Harper's were just a few of the periodicals that avidly utilized wood engraving. They normally used it to illustrate news stories and to depict works of art. Engraving was also used for political cartoons, as those in Punch. In the late 1800s, it was replaced by photographic processes.