The Master of the Steel Plate: The Life and Legacy of George Edward Perine In the vibrant, industrious atmosphere of nineteenth-century America, few artists captured the dignity of the era with as much precision and soul as George Edward Perine. Born in South Orange, New Jersey, in 1837, Perine emerged from a background of intellectual rigor—the son of a Rutgers University mathematics professor—to become a pioneer of American portrait engraving. His life was a testament to the marriage of scientific exactitude and artistic expression, a duality that allowed him to master the demanding medium…