To achieve color, early reproductions were often hand-colored. Relief prints are printed from the surface of the plate or wood block. Areas carved out, unlike intaglio, print white. The block or plate is first inked then paper is floated on the surface and is either run through a press or rubbed with a smooth object such as a spoon to record the image. Woodcuts and wood engravings do not produce plate marks.
Relief printing is the oldest printing technique.
China is said to have produced the earliest known relief prints in about c. 800. Wood engravings were the universal, standard technique of book and magazine illustration and remained as such until being replaced by photomechanical processes in the late Nineteenth century. Wood engravings were produced using metal burins and engraving tools on the end grain of very hard wood such as box or pear wood. The print is printed from the surface of the wood block. Up to 5 blocks were uniquely carved and inked with a different color and brought into register to achieve the color in this print.