Print collector's quarterly (6.1916)

and spontaneous quality of a pen-and-ink drawing. In-
deed it is evident that Leoni was not preoccupied with
following an engraver’s technique, but laid in his lines
exactly as he had been accustomed to do with a pen,
freely and openly, without any thought of minute pre-
cision, and without correcting or reenforcing the lines
already laid. Both plates are in every respect just what
would be expected in the work of an accomplished artist
who turns his hand to an unfamiliar metier; the heads
are admirably drawn and of remarkable spirit and vivac-
ity, and the artist is so far quite innocent of any of the
conventions, as well as of the peculiar possibilities and
qualities, of engraving. In the next few plates, Leoni
draws closer to engraver’s methods. He makes rapid
progress; both in skill of hand and in technical knowl-
edge, and experiments in various different manners. In
the Lodovico Bertucd (B. 11), he tries a fuller use of dot-
ting, while in one or two other heads —■ those for ex-
ample in B. 7 — he follows with remarkable skill the
classic method of pure line. But he still has decided ups
and downs. Beside very successful plates, such as the
Marco Zeppo (B. 8) and Lodovico Bertucd (B. 11), are
several complete failures, one of them, unfortunately,
the portrait of himself (B. 6) which is after one of the
best of his drawings. We even find successes and fail-
ures side by side on the same plate, — as in the group
of four studies of heads (B. 13).
But whether good or bad, these early plates are sharply
distinguished from the rest of Leoni’s work, both in char-
acter and in intention. They are studies, rather than
plates intended to be published, executed in the spirit
of an artist who is amusing himself or searching out his
way, and they have something of the personal and

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