Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/396

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etcher, pupil of Boucher, was the first to make aquatint known. His first plate was executed about 1750, and there is a little volume published in 1768 representing coiffures drawn from life and gravée à l'aqua-tinte. The Hon. Charles Greville brought the secret to this country and communicated it to Paul Sandby, who was the first to add a touch of poetry to the topographical drawings then so much in vogue. His aquatints were very numerous and very popular. Many series of publications of scenery and costume illustrated in this style were published at the opening years of the nineteenth century by Ackerman and Orme. Among the best known engravers in aquatint must be mentioned Thomas Malton (1748-1804), who produced plates of the chief buildings of London; Joseph C. Stadler, a German, working in England, who executed plates of the London bridges and six plates of the Picturesque Scenery of Great Britain after Loutherburg, The Cathedral at Ulm after Prout (22 in. by 17 in.), coloured by hand, is a fine specimen of his aquatint work. F. C. Lewis (1779-1856), a pupil of Stadler, in addition to his fine stipple work after Lawrence, did some fine aquatint plates. We reproduce an example of aquatint executed by F. C. Lewis, after a drawing by J. Varley, and it will be seen, even through the medium of a half-tone block illustration, that the art of aquatint is capable of some powerful effects.

In regard to figure in combination with landscape the accompanying reproduction of an aquatint by J. Hassall, "Published Aug. 1, 1812—No. 11,