SENEFELDER, ALOIS (1771-1834)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 639 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SENEFELDER, ALOIS (1771-1834) , German inventor of lithography, was born at

Munich

MUNICH (Ger. Munchen)

on the 6th of November 1771, his father Peter being an actor at the Theatre Royal. Owing to the death of his father he was unable to continue his legal studies at the university of Ingolstadt, and tried to support himself as a performer and author, but without success. In order to accelerate the publication of one of his works, he frequently spent whole days in the printing office, and found the process of printing so simple that he conceived the

idea

IDEA (Gr. Ibia, connected with i&eiv, to see; cf. Lat. species from specere, to look at)

of purchasing a small printing

press

PRESS (through Fr. presse from Lat. pressare, frequentative of premere, to crush, squeeze, press)

, thus enabling himself to

and publish his own compositions. Unable to pay for the engraving of his compositions, he attempted to engrave them himself. He made numerous experiments with little success; tools and skill were alike wanting. Copper-plates were expensive, and the want of a sufficient number entailed the tedious process of grinding and polishing afresh those he had used. About this period his attention was accidentally directed to a fine piece of Kellheim stone which he had

purchased

PURCHASED

for the purpose of grinding his ink. His first

idea

IDEA (Gr. Ibia, connected with i&eiv, to see; cf. Lat. species from specere, to look at)

was to use it merely for practice in his exercises in writing backwards, the ease with which the stone could be ground and polished afresh being the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

inducement. While he was engaged one day in polishing a stone slab on which to continue his exercises, his

mother

MOTHER

entered the room and desired him to write
1 The. convention, under the leadership of

Lucretia

LUCRETIA

Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, adopted a " Declaration of Sentiments " modelled after the American Declaration of Independence, and resolved " that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," and " that the same amount of virtue, delicacy and refinement of behaviour that is required of woman in the social state should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman."
her a bill for the washer-woman, who was waiting for the linen. Neither

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

nor ink being at hand, the bill was written on the stone he had just polished. The ink used was composed of wax, soap and lamp-black. Some time afterwards, when about to wipe the writing from the stone, the idea all at once struck him to try the effect of biting the stone with aqua fortis. Surrounding the stone with a border of wax, he covered its surface with a mixture of one part of aqua fortis and ten parts of water. The result of the experiment was that at the end of five minutes he found the writing elevated about the tenth part of a line (T v in.). He then proceeded to apply the printing ink to the stone, using at first a common printer's ball, but soon found that a thin piece of board covered with fine cloth answered better, communicating the ink more equally. He was able to take satisfactory impressions, and, the method of printing being new, he hoped to obtain a patent for it, or even some assistance from the government. For years Senefelder continued his experiments, until the art not only became simplified, but reached a high degree of excellence in his hands. In later years the king of Bavaria settled a handsome pension on Senefelder. He died at

Munich

MUNICH (Ger. Munchen)

in 1834, having lived to see his invention brought to

comparative

COMPARATIVE

perfection.

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