The Invention of Lithography Part 7

Freiherr von Aretin wished that the management of the business be in the hands of a man who possessed his own fullest confidence, but whom I did not consider at all suitable, as he was a royal official and as such could not do business in a public shop. Consequently the trade was carried on in his own residence, which was known to only few people and where n.o.body looked for the manifold things that we could have produced to good profit. This at last lowered our establishment to a mere job printery, which finally could not maintain itself, because more and more similar establishments were started in Munich, and the prices for work became lower and lower through their hungry compet.i.tion.

It may not be uninteresting to tell briefly how so many printeries happened to be undertaken.

The first was established by Gleissner and myself, and was continued afterward in my name by my brothers Theobald and George, until 1805.

They sold the secret to the Feyertag School, where an excellent art inst.i.tute developed gradually under Herr Mitterer.

Strohhofer learned the elements of the process from my brother Karl, and a.s.sociated himself, in 1806, with Herr Sidler, royal court musician, who had studied first with my brothers, then with Madame Gleissner, and then in the Aretin printery. When Strohhofer left Munich, Sidler erected a stone-printery for the Government, and after he had obtained an official permit before the expiration of my franchise, he established his own inst.i.tution, producing very good work.

During this time Madame Gleissner had pet.i.tioned the Government frequently for sufficient work to a.s.sist her, and had obtained the promise through His Excellency the Minister of State, von Montgelas.

Then it happened that the chief of a newly organized bureau, Freiherr von Hartmann, having a great deal of writing to do in beginning his new work, decided to introduce lithography for the purpose of saving labor.

His intention was to have it all done in our inst.i.tution. No doubt he had communicated this plan to von Montgelas; for as he met Madame Gleissner about this time, and she asked again for work, he said that he had given Senefelder enough work to keep ten presses busy, and if he had not yet received it, he would get it soon through Freiherr von Hartmann.

There evidently was a misunderstanding here on account of the name. When Freiherr von Hartmann sent one of his subordinates to call Senefelder to him, he brought my brother Theobald, who immediately got orders to establish a lithographic office, and shortly afterward was appointed Inspector of Lithography. Beside a considerable salary, he received the following other incomes, first, excellent pay for all work that was turned in; second, an agreement that if his ten presses could not be sufficiently employed by the bureau, he might work for other governmental bureaus and for private persons. Thus he received a great deal of work, among other jobs the printing of pa.s.sports for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which earned large sums for him in a short time and placed him in very good circ.u.mstances.

He could not conceal his good luck, and so it came that many people imagined that stone-printing was a means for getting rich quickly, which resulted in a disproportionate growth of new shops. Out of his own there sprang two, namely, those of Helmle and Roth, who erected their own printeries under the permit of the police.

At the same time a lithographic inst.i.tution was erected in the Royal Asylum for the Poor on the Anger; and a Herr Dietrich, of a government bureau, also established one.

My own prospects became worse and worse toward the year 1810. Though I may flatter myself that I perfected myself very greatly through unceasing practice and thousands of experiments, still, without a fortunate accident, it might well have happened that I would have been forced to think it lucky if I could obtain work under one of my former apprentices.

I even suffered the insult of having the papers declare that though I had invented the art roughly, I had kept it secret for a long time through selfishness, and had never understood how to use it for anything except merely printing music. The falsity and humiliating character of this statement were bound to pain me the more bitterly, since all other stone-artists and stone-printers had learned only from me, and not one (not even Herr Mitterer, the most expert and, perhaps because of that, the most modest) possessed the art as a whole, in all its parts, as perfectly as I did. I hope that my text-book will prove this.

So far as the secret was concerned, the statement was an evident falsehood. Since the moment when I received the exclusive franchise in Bavaria, in the year 1799, I had made no secret of any part of my process toward any living being. I showed the whole manipulation to my workmen as well as to all strangers. Those who knew me more intimately and realized, therefore, that I could not resist the desire for communicating anything that I discovered to benefit mankind, often censured me severely for my frankness, saying that I could have been a millionaire had I kept my art a secret. But this was equally erroneous.

I never could have succeeded to any degree with my own means.

The false belief that I desired exclusive enjoyment of the results of stone-printing, is in direct contradiction of the fact that the lack of secrecy was held to invalidate my exclusive franchise. The idea may have arisen, at least partly, through the circ.u.mstance that several of my former workmen, or others who learned something of the art, made a wonderful secret of it, in order to be considered more important. This was carried to such an extent that some traveled from place to place and sold their knowledge to many people for large sums under the seal of confidence. I pity those who thus received in exchange for their money something of little or no use, when they could have learned from me for practically nothing, as it always was my greatest delight to converse with intelligent men about those subjects that interested me so deeply as inventor.

After making this little excursion, which was needed for my justification, I return to my story.

There were, then, in 1809, six public printeries in Munich besides mine, without reckoning those which several artists had made for their own use. The foremost among the latter was Herr Mettenleithner, Royal Copper Plate Engraver. He was one of the first to whom I had shown specimens, as early as 1796, of the new process, but he had paid little attention to it. Partly through various very excellent specimens from Herr Mitterer's print, and partly through the work of Strixner and Pilotti, he was induced to make experiments. A son of Herr von Dall'

Armi, who was taking lessons just then in drawing and copper etching for his own pleasure, interested himself in the process. As a result, the latter established a lithographic inst.i.tution in Rome, which, so far as I know, never achieved any decided success.

Soon afterward Herr Mettenleithner, in a.s.sociation with one of the best of the Aretin printers, a man named Weishaupt, laid the foundation for the stone-printery of the Royal Tax Commission (Konigliche Unmittelbare Steuer-Kataster-Kommission), which is now the most important of all the lithographic inst.i.tutions of Munich. A little later a similar inst.i.tution was founded for reproduction purposes by the Royal Privy Council, through Herr Mettenleithner's son-in-law, Herr Winter.

Herr Mettenleithner was appointed director of the great establishment, which employed some thirty engravers, to etch the plans of the Steuer-Kataster, which received fifteen to twenty thousand impressions each. At this time the Kingdom of Bavaria was being charted in great detail for tax-regulation purposes, under the management of Privy Councilor von Utzschneider, the man who has done so much for Bavaria's home industries. There were required at least two exact copies of each map, and close calculation proved that it would be possible to etch the charts on stone and make several hundred impressions for the money that these two copies would cost if done by hand. In addition, each of these impressions was good enough to serve as an original.

The lithographic inst.i.tution of the Royal Steuer-Kataster had been in operation for some time when a trivial occurrence had the most important effect on my fate.

It became necessary to print a sheet of such great size that there happened to be no stone in Munich large enough. Weishaupt remembered that he had seen stones in my possession which I had purchased partly for map-work and partly for printing cotton and tapestries. He sent a printer to me with a letter from Royal Tax Councilor von Badhauser, requesting that I sell the Government a stone of the necessary dimensions. Herr von Badhauser was a friend of my father, and I myself always had entertained the highest respect for him. He was also a friend of Herr Gleissner, and had done many things to oblige him. I embraced the opportunity of doing him a favor with joy, and the matter probably would have had no further consequences, had not Madame Gleissner arrived just as the stone was being taken away.

She suspected that the stone might be desired for a purpose other than the one stated, and sought Herr von Badhauser to ascertain the truth. On this occasion she complained to him that the Government, not content with infringing our franchise by erecting its own printeries, also took away our workmen after I had trained them with much labor and expense.

Herr von Badhauser was surprised. He said that Privy Councilor von Utzschneider had wished to turn work over to me, but that my reply to his proposal, which had been laid before me by a designer named Schiesl, had been that it was against my arrangements to collaborate with any other establishment, and that, on the contrary, it was my intention, with the a.s.sistance of Freiherr von Aretin, to press our suit against the Government for infringement.

This Herr Schiesl, a pupil of Herr Methleithner, had worked for us occasionally, and, indeed, was one of the first to use the new process for drawings, especially pen-drawings. As he was rather adept and showed great interest, I gave him full instructions in everything, and he knew all my circ.u.mstances exactly. Thus he understood thoroughly that my future depended on the turn that Freiherr von Aretin's affairs might take, and that our situation was precarious, owing to the compet.i.tion of so many establishments. Therefore, I cannot understand how he came to utter a statement so contrary to the truth.

Madame Gleissner hurried to Herr von Utzschneider and explained my real intentions to him. He promised to consider the matter earnestly.

Herr Professor Schiegg, an excellent geometrician and astronomer, was member of the Steuer-Kataster-Kommission, and had the supervision over the entire inst.i.tution. He was not well satisfied. Too many costly proof-prints were being made, and the impressions did not please him.

Accidentally he saw my receipt for payment for the stone which I had furnished, and he observed that I did not ask more for it than the Commission had to pay for stones only half as large. Also I charged only twenty-four kreuzer for polishing, whereas the Commission had been paying one gulden for stones of four square feet. He took occasion to represent to the Commission that it might be well to give me the management of the establishment.

Herr von Utzschneider sent for me and asked for a proposition. After discussion with Freiherr von Aretin I proposed that the Commission let me print their etched plates for two kreuzer per impression, in return for which I would pay the workmen, defray the cost of all printing material, and also keep the presses in repair, pull necessary proofs without charge, and bear the cost of all imperfect work.

This plan seemed very fair to me, as the Royal Commission would save two thirds of the expenses it had defrayed hitherto; but it met with such opposition that Herr von Utzschneider advised me to make another proposition, preferably one that involved a good salary for myself and Herr Gleissner, which, probably, would be received with more favor. He added the flattering statement that the Royal Commission would be proud to have me, the inventor of the art, in its employ, and thus to reward my struggles in the name of the fatherland. The excellent man fulfilled the expectations thus raised, and became my greatest benefactor and founder of my fortune; for through him I won the prospect of an unvexed old age, and was placed in a position where I did not need any longer to consider my art merely as a livelihood. Everything useful that I have invented since then, and I hope it is not inconsiderable, is due to the serene and happy position in which I was placed through his goodness.

At the time I thought also that, if we were both employed by the Royal Steuer-Kataster-Kommission, it would save Freiherr von Aretin the burden of supporting us, without causing him damage, as according to the preliminary promise of the Commission we should have time enough left to manage his inst.i.tution. So I agreed to a.s.sume supervision over the Commission's printery, to give it my best knowledge, and give the workmen complete instructions and training, for which there was to be a salary for life of one thousand five hundred gulden for me and one thousand gulden for my friend Gleissner, with the rank of Royal Inspector of Lithography, and with the right to maintain and conduct our own printery. My terms were graciously accepted, and in October, 1809, we received our appointment.

Only in the beginning were my personal services especially necessary.

Later, as the workmen grew equal to their tasks, I found more and more leisure for dedicating myself to inventing improvements. I was rather fortunate in this endeavor, and the various processes invented since 1809 would now be generally known through the publication of many interesting works, had Freiherr von Aretin not been forced to leave Munich to a.s.sume his new duties in the Royal Service. This left my art without his a.s.sistance, and our partnership reached its end just as it was beginning to attain fruit. My own circ.u.mstances did not permit me to continue the establishment on its former scale; therefore, Freiherr von Aretin turned over part of it, especially the art-branches, to von Manlich, the Director of the Royal Gallery, and another part to Herr Zeller. The latter soon gave up the printing business as incompatible with his other interests, but he did a great deal for domestic art and industry later by opening a warehouse for its products, also by publishing a paper and issuing many lithographic art productions.

I kept one or two presses for myself, and as I married the daughter of the Royal Chief Auditor Versch in January, 1810, I hoped to teach my wife to manage a small business. In the very beginning I obtained a large order for pa.s.sports from the Royal Commission of the Isar, which kept the presses busy for a month. At the same time I contracted with the Royal War Economy Council to furnish all their printing. Besides this, I had many orders from another Royal Commission and from Herr Falter, so that my little establishment was very busy. Unfortunately it happened that I was not paid at once by the Royal Commission of the Isar, but only after four years. Added to this, after some months I had to support my workmen in idleness for several weeks, because there happened to be no work for them. This gave my wife so ill an idea of the business that she kept at me till I promised her to give up the whole thing.

Madame Gleissner was not so timid. She offered to take over my men if I would turn over to her the government work that I had. At first she did very well, because just then orders came from many directions. She might have made a great success, had her husband not been stricken with paralysis, which rendered him so miserable that at last he lost his mind. Then came the ever-growing compet.i.tion and at last the government bureau installed its own plant. Her daughter lost her eyesight almost wholly at this time, so that the family fell into a woeful condition, which would be still worse now if they were not sustained by faith in the mercy and grace of our best of kings, who will surely reward their efforts for lithography, which art, according to the belief of all experts, will ever remain a beautiful flower in the shining wreath of the n.o.ble Maximilian.

As soon as I did not need any longer to give up my time to earning a mere livelihood, I began seriously to plan publication of my lithographic text-book, the first number of which had appeared previously and been well received. But the skill of the various lithographers made noticeable advances every day, so that I was not content with the specimen pages that had seemed so satisfactory a year earlier. At last I fell under the delusion that it was absolutely vital to my honor that everything that might appear in my text-book must represent the _non plus ultra_ of the process. Therefore I decided to suppress the first number entirely, because there were sample pages in it that represented a style which had been done much better since then.

However, many obstacles opposed me. For instance, good artists are very costly, especially if they must learn new methods and practice them. I felt, also, that many of my inventions still demanded many improvements before I could intrust them to the hands of any artists. Still, I hoped finally to accomplish my plan for publishing a splendid work which should be unique, because I invented improvements and perfections daily. When my dear friend Andre came to Munich in 1811, I laid my project before him and he was so taken with it that he offered his cordial cooperation. We agreed that the work was to be done by Frankfurter artists and printed there. But when I journeyed to Offenbach some months later, I discovered that the right kind of artists were not so easy to find as Andre had led me to hope. Some, who might have been competent, demanded such exorbitant terms that the work would necessarily have been published only at a huge loss. "Copper-etching,"

said they, "we understand. Stone-etching we must learn. The latter seems to us, who are unpracticed in it, three times as difficult. Therefore it is but fair that we shall be paid three times as much." This sort of reasoning led me to return to Munich to print the work there.

Now two years pa.s.sed with many experiments. Many a plate was made, printed, and discarded because meantime I had found something better.

Then I lost my beloved wife in child-bed, and in my anguish over this loss, irredeemable as I thought at the time, I forgot all my projects till my second wife, a niece of our worthy Choir-Master Ritter von Winter, reconciled me with Providence, notably through her truly motherly behavior toward the son left behind by my first wife. I considered it my duty now to publish my work, that in case of my death their claims to honor should be established. Without this incentive, it would have been much more indifferent to me what men might think of my art or its inventor.

In 1816, Herr Andre came to Munich again, and I imparted to him many of my recent inventions in regard to lithography. On this occasion we decided ultimately which of our plates should be put into the work and which should be discarded. I promised to get seriously to work and we looked forward so confidently to the completion of the entire publication that Herr Andre circulated a preliminary notice of it in the Easter-Messe at Leipsic, whither he went after leaving Munich.

Despite this, there came many delays, the chief one being caused by my meeting Herr Gerold, book-dealer and printer of Vienna, who invited me to establish a printery for him. As my presence in Vienna would be needed for only three months, I believed that this would cause no delay in the publication of the text-book, because the plates ordered from the Munich artists could be completed during that time, while I could furnish the text as well in Vienna as in Munich. But I had the misfortune of becoming seriously ill soon after reaching Vienna. A great weakness remained as result, and this made it impossible for me to undertake the return voyage in the bad weather that marked the winter of 1816-17.

Lithography did not progress particularly with Herr Gerold during my stay, because he could not obtain the franchise, though he had pet.i.tioned for it a year ago. The greatest blame for this was due to Herr Steiner's opposition. This man, who had done but little for the art in the entire time during which he enjoyed the exclusive Austrian franchise that I had turned over to him, did this from pure ill-will, because he had suffered similar ill-luck, as he said.

So Gerold could not establish so complete a printery as I wished, without going into expenses based on an uncertainty. However, various drawings were made that served to show art-lovers what could be done with lithography. It would be easy to perfect this art immensely in Vienna, because there is no lack of excellent artists. Among those who interested themselves at the very beginning in Herr Gerold's undertaking were Herr Colonel von Aurach, Herr Captain Kohl, and Herr Kunike, the drawing-master for the family of Prince von Schwarzenberg. They convinced themselves with many experiments that lithography was eminently suitable for the easy reproduction of many styles of drawing, and recommended the method to all their acquaintances. Through the experiments of Herr Kunike I gained the conviction that one could print true originals by using a method of touching up the impressions.

The crayon method in combination with one or two tint plates is the method that is easiest for the artist to handle. Now this method is very difficult to print, demanding great practice if good, strong, and clear impressions are to be produced. Since there are as yet no complete printeries where an artist can have his own plates printed without danger of damage, there is nothing left except to print them himself, which causes many imperfect impressions that must be destroyed for the credit of the artist. Herr Kunike had this experience; but he took his imperfect impressions, when they were not entirely spoiled, and worked them over with black crayon. It developed that twelve impressions could be so well touched up by hand that they would fittingly pa.s.s as originals, in the time which would be required to copy a single picture properly. As this treatment of ill.u.s.trations produces their value only by merit of the final finishing, they may be considered as being the same as copies that are made by an artist of his own work, wherein it happens often that the copy turns out better than the original.

Just as I was preparing to leave Vienna I received several numbers of the _Anzeiger fur Kunst und Gewerbfleiss_, in which Herr Direktor von Schlichtegroll, General Secretary of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, had inserted several letters suggesting an inquiry into the invention of lithography. He had used the information obtained from my brothers and from other inhabitants of Munich. On my arrival there I visited him at once to thank him for his patriotic endeavors, and to make some corrections of the story told by him. I had the fortune to win him as a steady friend, who became continually interested in giving my work a greater field.

The completion of this text-book is due to his steadfast encouragement.

He furnished me with the opportunity to meet many worthy men and also to demonstrate my many improvements before the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Polytechnical Union, and at last even before their majesties, our most gracious King and his most highly venerated spouse, that ill.u.s.trious connoisseur and protectress of the arts. Never to be forgotten by me will be the moment when the gracious applause of the royal pair rewarded me for all the exertions of my life. Oh! If only human life were not so limited, if it were granted to me to execute only one tenth part of my designs, I would make myself worthy of this great honor by making many another useful invention! But the time pa.s.ses swiftly during our helpless wishing and striving; and when twenty or thirty years have been lived, there remains for us only amazement at beholding how little has been done of all that which glowing imagination and fiery energy painted as being so easy to carry out.

When I saw before me the first successful impressions from a stone, and conceived the plan of making the invention useful for myself, I did not think that it would demand the greatest part of my life. Rather, because it seemed to be a cheap process, I considered it merely a first step toward putting me into a position where I would be able to make inventions far more useful and important. I must, however, count myself fortunate among thousands, because my invention received such thorough recognition during my lifetime, and because I myself was able to bring it to a degree of perfection such as other inventions generally attained only after many years and long after the inventor himself was dead.

Herr von Manlich, the Director of the Royal Gallery, has had his skilled pupils, Strixner and Pilotti, copy many collections in the Royal Drawing Cabinet (Konigliche Zeichnungs Kabinett), and many of these sheets are so good that competent critics have declared them to be perfect facsimiles.

But on the whole the publication of the Royal Gallery of Paintings is still more excellent and has aroused general attention, which would be even greater if the printers had been as expert as the artists were.

Many of these pages would leave nothing to be desired if the pictures appeared on the paper in perfection equal to the perfection of the drawings on the stone.

The method used for these ill.u.s.trations is the crayon method, with one or more tint plates. It is the easiest method for the artists because it demands little previous experience. To give it its correct emphasis, however, one must know especially how to get the best effect out of the tint plates. If this is done just right, and if, of course, the drawing bears the impress of a masterly hand, and if the printer understands his art, the impression will be perfectly like an original drawing, so that the most skilled etcher in copper hardly can attain the same effect.

Therefore this method, which has the further advantage of being a quick one, is excellently well adapted for copying paintings.

Hereby I wish to express my deepest grat.i.tude publicly to the worthy Herr Direktor von Manlich and his industrious pupils for the service they have done for the fame of lithography by utilizing my inventions.

To their labors, as well as to those of Herr Professor Mitterer, is due the ever-growing sympathy and interest of the public.