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In fact, only a single dot over an i had been missing at the end, says the calligrapher, with no nightmare spelling mistakes discovered in the hand-stitched pages of copperplate writing.

The copperplate lines are so exact they mimic the individual venation of feathers; the neck of a gyrfalcon takes on all the ripply realism of moiréd silk.

In Nicole Phillip-Dowe's office at the University of the West Indies, in Grenada's capital St George's, we pored over record books, where officials with copperplate handwriting recorded the annual births and deaths of the enslaved.

He learned his reading and had a fair copperplate hand.

Screenings at the Yale University Art Gallery are accompanied by an exhibition of copperplate engravings, experimental electroplated copper reliefs and massive sculptures cast from burned-out trees.