Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki was a German painter and printmaker of Huguenot and Polish ancestry, who is most famous as an etcher. He spent most of his life in Berlin, and became the director of the Berlin Academy of Art.
Portrait of Daniel Chodowiecki, painted posthumously by Adolph von Menzel in 1859
Minuet in the park, 1760s (National Museum in Warsaw)
Cartoon etching by Chodowiecki, 1781, on the Partition of Poland
Chodowiecki depicted on a 1 million papiermark note (1923)
Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material. As a method of printmaking, it is, along with engraving, the most important technique for old master prints, and remains in wide use today. In a number of modern variants such as microfabrication etching and photochemical milling, it is a crucial technique in modern technology, including circuit boards.
The Soldier and his Wife. Etching by Daniel Hopfer, who is believed to have been the first to apply the technique to printmaking.
The etched carnelian beads in this necklace from the Royal Cemetery of Ur dating to the First Dynasty of Ur (2600-2500 BCE) were probably imported from the Indus Valley.
Self-portrait etched by Wenceslaus Hollar
Selection of early etched printing plates from the British Museum
