Book illustration

[1] Other techniques such as engraving, etching, lithography and various kinds of colour printing were to expand the possibilities and were exploited by such masters as Daumier, Doré or Gavarni.

[2] Printers of large early books often reused several times, and also had detachable "plugs" of figures, or the attributes of saints, which they could rearrange within a larger image to make several variations.

[3]: 247–252  In the middle of the 16th century woodcut was gradually overtaken by the intaglio printing techniques of engraving and etching which became dominant by about 1560–1590, first in Antwerp, then Germany, Switzerland and Italy, the important publishing centres.

Engraving and etching gave sharper definition and finer detail to the illustrations, and rapidly became dominant by the late 15th century, often with the two techniques mixed together in a single plate.

[6]: 135 New techniques developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries revolutionized book illustrations and put new resources at the disposal of artists and designers.

In the late twentieth century, the process known as offset lithography made color printing cheaper and less-time consuming for the artist.

Since February 2024, several German libraries started to block public access to their stock of 19th century books to check for the degree of poisoning.