Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/191

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vignette illustrations after Tony Johannot, the prince of popular French illustrators. These wood engravings have many French signatures to them and a sprinkling of English wood engravers, such as Orrin-Smith, J. Thompson, and others, and as the names Andrew, Best, Leloir, always appear together as a signature, it is doubtful whether this be one wood engraver or three, as in some cases it seems to have been the practice for two engravers to work together.

An edition of "Les Chansons de Béranger" with a hundred and sixty illustrations engraved on wood appeared in 1866. This volume contains many fine designs and equally fine wood engravings bearing the names of Pannemaker, Regnier, Ansseau, and others.

Among the French wood engravers of more modern days the name of Edmond Yon must not be omitted. He was a painter as well as a wood engraver and etcher, and his work with the graver conveys the most subtle suggestion of the particular brushwork he is translating. One of his wood engravings in particular which appeared in the Art Journal as a full-page illustration in the late eighties entitled the La Giudecca Canal, Venice, from the picture by Charles Lapostolet, scintillates with light. The cloudless sky as a background occupies over three quarters of the engraving, and it is an exceptionally fine rendering of tone graduated with intricate precision till it melts into the horizon. Pisan is another Frenchman whose work stands out for its breadth and strength. In Germany, the home of Dürer and of Holbein, since the days of Adolf von Menzel whose Frederic