Copper engraving almost suffered the fate of many other techniques: to be forgotten. Only a few contemporary artists are experimenting with the medium; in the nineteenth century it was used almost exclusively as a means of reproducing pictures, but modern reproduction techniques came to displace it and it would have been completely lost had not some etchers used it in correcting and overhauling their plates.When, at the end of the 19th century, etching underwent a revival, engraving did not enjoy a similar increase in popularity. The artistic intentions of that period did not lend themselves to expression in such a precise technique : the burn is not suited to impressionism with its sketchy kind of design. The changed concepts of our time ought to be more suitable to the peculiar possibilities of engraving on copper.