Intaglio engraving

Meaning

Lemma.

Taille-douce is engraving and printing from incised lines in a plate. Gamelin plans it for cards he wants Desmahis to engrave. Blaise counters with the commercial advantage of roughly drawn figures cut in wood with a penknife. The contrast is not simply beautiful versus ugly art: refinement must be paid for and must fit how the object will be used. “Intaglio” preserves the technical distinction from the relief woodcut method described in the reply.