Who is the most common artist in this category?

Herbert Thomas Dicksee, by a wide margin. His name is in 109 of 416 titles, roughly a quarter of everything filed under the heading. The subjects are dogs, hounds and big cats. A handful of plate titles come round again and again from different dealers, among them 'Ready', 'The Closed Door', 'His First Night from Home', 'A Place in the Sun' and 'The Prodigal'.

What period do most of these come from?

The early twentieth century is the centre of gravity. Of the 261 listings carrying a clean year, the 1920s is much the largest band, with the 1910s, 1930s and 1900s behind it. The 18th century accounts for 38 listings, and another 43 are filed only as '19th Century'. Titles reach further back than the dated field does, including 17th-century sheets and a plate published in Rome around 1600.

Are engravings and mezzotints listed as etchings?

Yes. Dealers file drypoints, aquatints, mezzotints and line engravings under the same heading, so the category covers intaglio printing generally rather than acid-bitten plates alone. The mezzotints here are almost always 18th-century portraits after a painter. Aquatint appears in 10 titles and drypoint in 9, often combined with etching on the same sheet.

How many come up for sale each year?

Around 40 a year come to market on Sellingantiques, and 88 different dealers have listed one. That spread tells you something about the category. It is one almost every general dealer touches at least once, rather than the preserve of print specialists.

Do these ever sell as pairs or sets?

About one listing in eight is a pair or a set rather than a single sheet. 'Pair' appears in 22 titles, alongside sets of three, four, six, seven, fifteen and twenty-seven prints. Sets sit high. The largest sums in the archive include four coloured engravings of Raphael's Loggia, twenty-seven Regency hand-tinted prints and a collection of fifteen 17th- and 18th-century prints.

What unusual things turn up under this heading?

Twice the object offered was not an impression at all but the etched copper plate itself, one a harbour scene and one bound up with a set of nudes. Ten titles come from the Antiquities of Athens plates, with satyrs, Boreas, Zephyros and the Doric Portico among the subjects. One listing is a George III 'long engraving', a panorama of a minuet as danced at Bath.

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Antique Etchings

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An etching is a print pulled from a metal plate bitten with acid, and the ones filed here run from 18th-century plates after paintings to pencil-signed British sheets of the 1920s.