If you had lived in the days of Rembrandt, Goya and Durer etching would have been the very latest "high tech" method for producing fine art.

Its key advantage was seen to be the ability to reproduce an image a number of times. This allowed a popular image to be sold again and again. Rembrandt was one of the first old masters to recognise this and produced a famous etching of Christ on the Cross which sold out immediately.