“When the whole history of rapid photogravure comes to be written (as I doubt greatly if it ever will be) it will be one of the oddest stories in the whole annals of our craft, and even today the oddities continue.” [1]

Around 1879, Karl Klíč perfected the engraving of copper plated cylinders instead of flat plates, in an attempt to speed up the slow process of photogravure. Although it was very expensive to engrave a single cylinder, once it was finished thousands of images could be printed making it financially viable for books, magazines and newspapers. In 1895, Klíč joined Samuel Fawcett and the Storey Brothers printing firm in Lancaster to form the Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Company. Klíč convinced them to stop printing textiles and specialize instead in the reproduction of old master paintings and other art publications.

Inscribed, "Director of the Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Co Ld. The original inventor of all photogravure both flat and rotary."