Lithography

The concept of lithography was developed by German Aloys Senefelder in 1796. He used a stone slab with printed grease marks and dampened it with water. When a coating of ink was applied to the stone, it adhered to the grease marks and washed away from the wet areas. The ink was then transferred to paper by pressing the stone against it.

Senefelder's method was perfected over time. Metal plates were soon used in place of stone slabs. Several chemical solutions that repelled water and adhered to ink better than grease could were experimented with. Lithography was used with several different color inks to create color pictures, called lithographs, which were made famous by Currier and Ives.