Trade Card for Robert Griffith, Seal and Copper Plate Engraver
18th century
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 3/8 × 3 1/16 in. (6.1 × 7.7 cm)
Classification
Prints|Ephemera
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 1926
Accession Number
26.28.376
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling world of 18th-century commerce with this charming trade card for Robert Griffith, a skilled seal and copper plate engr. Produced anonymously around that era, this petite engraving (just 2 3/8 × 3 1/16 inches) served as a portable advertisement, much like a modern business card. Distributed by craftsmen to potential clients, trade cards like this one showcased services while doubling as decorative keepsakes, often collected in scrapbooks. Engraving, the medium here, involved incising designs into a copper plate with tools, then inking and printing onto paper—a technique ...