Edward Thomas Daniell in the context of Banham, Norfolk

Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The difference is in the use of tools, and that the raised ridge along the furrow is not scraped or filed away as in engraving. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used.

Like etching, drypoint is easier to master than engraving for an artist trained in drawing because the technique of using the needle is closer to using a pencil than the engraver's burin. The incision into the plate is also typically much more shallow, so requiring less effort and technical skill in the use of the engraver's burin, but meaning that fewer impressions (copies) of a print can be pulled before wear to the plate becomes apparent. Modern limited editions of drypoint prints (if not steelfaced) very often have fewer than thirty impressions.

John Linnell (16 June 1792 – 20 January 1882) was an English engraver, portrait painter, and landscape painter. He was a naturalist and a rival to the artist John Constable. He had a taste for Northern European art of the Renaissance, particularly Albrecht Dürer. He also associated with the amateur artist Edward Thomas Daniell, and with William Blake, to whom he introduced the painter and writer Samuel Palmer and others of the Ancients.