Mezzo-tinto is said to have been first invented by Prince Rupert, about the
year 1649: going out early one morning, during his retirement at Brussels,
he observed the sentinel, at some distance from his post, very busy doing
something to his piece. The prince asked the soldier what he was about? He
replied, the dew had fallen in the night, had made his fusil rusty, and
that he was scraping and cleaning it. The prince, looking at it, was struck
with something like a figure eaten into the barrel, with innumerable little
holes, closed together, like friezed work on gold or silver, part of which
the fellow had scraped away. The _genie second en experiences_ (says Lord
Orford), from so trifling an accident, conceived mezzo-tinto. The prince
concluded, that some contrivance might be found to cover a brass plate with
such a ground of fine pressed holes, which would undoubtedly give an
impression all black, and that, by scraping away proper parts, the smooth
superfices would leave the rest of the paper white. Communicating his idea
to Wallerant Vaillant, a painter, they made several experiments, and at
last invented a steel roller with projecting points, or teeth, like a file,
which effectually produced the black ground; and which, being scraped away
or diminished at pleasure, left the gradations of light. Such was the
invention of mezzo-tinto, according to Lord Orford, Mr. Evelyn, and Mr.
Vertue.

[1] The word mezzo-tinto is derived from the Italian, meaning half
painted.

P. T. W.

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