Wood engraving, or xylography, is a common method of letterpress printing that was used towards the end of the 18th century. It was developed from woodcuts by Thomas Bewick in the 19th century.
Templates of drawings, pictures or photographs are transferred to a wooden board cut across the grain with a wooden burin instead of a knife, processed and then printed on paper. Because these wood engravings are printed directly from the woodblock without photomechanical reproduction processes, they are original graphics!
Especially between 1850 and 1900 they were used in books and magazines of the 19th century. century illustrative purposes. This also explains why wood engravings were almost always printed together with text contributions and often have text on the back. Wood engravings almost