DOI Kapitel:
Chapter V
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62095#0069
Eighteenth-Century Colour-Prints
picture produced by one printing from it. A beautiful engraving after Van Huysum,
which he brought out in 1724, is printed in a light sepia, but has the sky and back-
ground in blue. The strange thing about this is that it evidently did not please the taste
of the town, for all the later issues of the plate are in monochrome, finished by a super-
imposed wood-block for the half-tones and high lights. A very interesting comparison
can be made between the two effects, a comparison considerably in favour of the first
effort. But that he preferred what his customers preferred, namely the chiaroscuro
printing, must be gathered from the result. All his later colour-work is done in this
manner, the invention of which I have ascribed to Ugo da Carpi, but, of course, with
considerable variations from the Italian methods. Kirkall’s work is a combination of etching
and mezzotint on metal plate with wood-blocks for printing over ; the outlines and the
darker parts are engraved on copper, and the half-tones are put in as washes by wood.
He reproduced “ JEneas and Anchises,” after Raphael, from Ugo da Carpi’s impression of
the same subject, and many other pictures. Had he been as excellent a wood-engraver as
he was a mezzotinter, he would have obtained better results. As it was, the over-printings
coarsened and vulgarised his fine work, and injured a reputation which, had it depended
upon his engraving and not upon his colour-printing, would have given him rank by the
side of Finlayson and John Smith.
That Kirkall had a considerable contemporary repute, however, is proved by his
mention in the “ Dunciad ” :—
Fair as before her works she stands confess’d,
In flowers o’ pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress’d.
This was written sarcastically of Eliza Haywood, the libellous novelist, who antedated the
“ New Woman” in being no credit to her own or any other sex, and who is supposed to
have supplied gentle Fanny Burney with the outline of Betty Thoughtless. The allusion
in the “ Dunciad ” is to the frontispiece engraved for a volume of poems, and “bounteous”
refers to the jewellery and ornament with which Kirkall plentifully besprinkled the plain
and uninteresting figure in the design.
Jakob and Jan L’Admiral were brothers, born at Leyden but of French parentage.
When Le Bion’s factory schemes came to naught, and, disaster threatening that generous
open-hearted master, he fled to France under a cloud of domestic and pecuniary
embarrassments, these two pupils of his deserted the sinking ship and scuttled back to
Amsterdam, where Jakob, appropriately enough, engraved insects ; and Jan did the
portraits for Van Mander’s Livre des Peintres. He also published a pamphlet on
colour-printing, chiefly stolen from Le Bion’s Coloritto^ but carefully avoiding mention
of that artist’s name. He executed in colour some appalling anatomical prints, in which
the hideous crudeness of the pigments added to the natural gruesomeness of the subjects.
But the register was exact and the work clean and careful. Frederic Ruysch employed
him largely.
Then there were the Gautier D’Agotys, father and son. Jacques Fabian Gautier
D’Agoty was painter, engraver, author, anatomist, and scientist. When Le Bion was
endeavouring to carry on his business of colour-printing in Paris, Gautier D’Agoty went
to him as assistant, but when, worn out with the struggle of life, Le Bion died, the
picture produced by one printing from it. A beautiful engraving after Van Huysum,
which he brought out in 1724, is printed in a light sepia, but has the sky and back-
ground in blue. The strange thing about this is that it evidently did not please the taste
of the town, for all the later issues of the plate are in monochrome, finished by a super-
imposed wood-block for the half-tones and high lights. A very interesting comparison
can be made between the two effects, a comparison considerably in favour of the first
effort. But that he preferred what his customers preferred, namely the chiaroscuro
printing, must be gathered from the result. All his later colour-work is done in this
manner, the invention of which I have ascribed to Ugo da Carpi, but, of course, with
considerable variations from the Italian methods. Kirkall’s work is a combination of etching
and mezzotint on metal plate with wood-blocks for printing over ; the outlines and the
darker parts are engraved on copper, and the half-tones are put in as washes by wood.
He reproduced “ JEneas and Anchises,” after Raphael, from Ugo da Carpi’s impression of
the same subject, and many other pictures. Had he been as excellent a wood-engraver as
he was a mezzotinter, he would have obtained better results. As it was, the over-printings
coarsened and vulgarised his fine work, and injured a reputation which, had it depended
upon his engraving and not upon his colour-printing, would have given him rank by the
side of Finlayson and John Smith.
That Kirkall had a considerable contemporary repute, however, is proved by his
mention in the “ Dunciad ” :—
Fair as before her works she stands confess’d,
In flowers o’ pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress’d.
This was written sarcastically of Eliza Haywood, the libellous novelist, who antedated the
“ New Woman” in being no credit to her own or any other sex, and who is supposed to
have supplied gentle Fanny Burney with the outline of Betty Thoughtless. The allusion
in the “ Dunciad ” is to the frontispiece engraved for a volume of poems, and “bounteous”
refers to the jewellery and ornament with which Kirkall plentifully besprinkled the plain
and uninteresting figure in the design.
Jakob and Jan L’Admiral were brothers, born at Leyden but of French parentage.
When Le Bion’s factory schemes came to naught, and, disaster threatening that generous
open-hearted master, he fled to France under a cloud of domestic and pecuniary
embarrassments, these two pupils of his deserted the sinking ship and scuttled back to
Amsterdam, where Jakob, appropriately enough, engraved insects ; and Jan did the
portraits for Van Mander’s Livre des Peintres. He also published a pamphlet on
colour-printing, chiefly stolen from Le Bion’s Coloritto^ but carefully avoiding mention
of that artist’s name. He executed in colour some appalling anatomical prints, in which
the hideous crudeness of the pigments added to the natural gruesomeness of the subjects.
But the register was exact and the work clean and careful. Frederic Ruysch employed
him largely.
Then there were the Gautier D’Agotys, father and son. Jacques Fabian Gautier
D’Agoty was painter, engraver, author, anatomist, and scientist. When Le Bion was
endeavouring to carry on his business of colour-printing in Paris, Gautier D’Agoty went
to him as assistant, but when, worn out with the struggle of life, Le Bion died, the