Master E. S.

He was the first printmaker to sign his prints with an engraved monogram, which was standard practice on significant pieces of metalwork.

He liked to fill his engravings with decorative detail, sometimes overloading the composition, and only slowly does a sense of volume or recession develop in his work.

Since his earliest prints show a practiced use of the burin, he is presumed to have worked as a goldsmith for some years before beginning printmaking.

His use of hatching (parallel lines) and cross-hatching to depict shading and volume, steadily grew more sophisticated and his figure-drawing became more confident, sometimes overconfident.

Many faces of his subjects have a rather pudding-like appearance, and are overly-large for their bodies, which diminishes the quality of otherwise, fine works [clarification needed].

Much of his work still has great charm, and the secular and comic subjects he engraved are rarely found in the surviving painting of the period.

Lehrs catalogues three hundred and eighteen engravings by E. S. and of these, ninety-five are unique, and fifty exist in only two impressions (copies).

Shestack considers that this reveals that his compositional method, here and perhaps commonly, was to begin by copying accurately a painting or other work by someone else.