DOI issue:
No. 95 (February, 1901)
DOI article:Mourey, Gabriel: Coloured etchings in France, [1]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19787#0021
departing when the principal value of a work of
art lay in the fact that it was unique. Is not a
coloured etching by Raffaelli, of twenty or thirty
Printings, none of which exactly resembles the
other, more valuable, from an artistic point of view,
than a—happily!—"unique and original" canvas
by one of the innumerable medallists of the
" official " salons ?
A new process I called the art of etching in
colours just now ; indeed, since Debucourt no one
employed it, and it was not till 1891 that M.
Charles Maurin—for to him, I believe, the honour
exclusively belongs—essayed to revive it. I have
examined this first attempt, a plate of small dimen-
sions and poor in all respects, entitled La Tireuse
de Cartes. About the same time MM. Raffaelli,
Bracquemand—the latter with a large plate called
L'Arc-en-ciel—Louis Legrand, Eugene Delatre,
Charles Houdard, Lepere, and Richard Ranft—to
name a few among many—tried their hands at the
new work.
This little historical point established, it will be
well, before examining separately the works of the
artists engaged in colour etching, to throw some
light on the technical side of the process.
Two methods are adopted, equally interesting
and expressive, and capable, as we shall see later,
of being combined and amalgamated.
The first consists in the colouring {coloriage a la
poupce) of a single plate.
This is the system usually adopted by M. Richard
Ranft, and an excellent example of the effects
obtainable thereby is to be seen in his Le Salut de
I'Ecuyere.
Process No. 2, altogether different from No. 1,
includes the superposition of plates, each capable
of containing one, two, or even three colours,
provided the limits of each colour be clearly
defined. Le Polo (page 4), by M. Jeanniot, is done
in this fashion.
Unquestionably there is more harmony, more
body, more suppleness of colour in process
No. 1 than in No. 2, which, moreover, demands
on the part of the artist a profound knowledge of
engraver's work. Jeanniot's Le Polo and Sur la
Plage may be regarded as brush engraving; that is,
the outline is done with the brush instead of with
the graver's point, the modelling of the subject being
reserved for the later plates. In a word, process
No. 2 is, strictly speaking, pure etching, and thus
7 ■
art lay in the fact that it was unique. Is not a
coloured etching by Raffaelli, of twenty or thirty
Printings, none of which exactly resembles the
other, more valuable, from an artistic point of view,
than a—happily!—"unique and original" canvas
by one of the innumerable medallists of the
" official " salons ?
A new process I called the art of etching in
colours just now ; indeed, since Debucourt no one
employed it, and it was not till 1891 that M.
Charles Maurin—for to him, I believe, the honour
exclusively belongs—essayed to revive it. I have
examined this first attempt, a plate of small dimen-
sions and poor in all respects, entitled La Tireuse
de Cartes. About the same time MM. Raffaelli,
Bracquemand—the latter with a large plate called
L'Arc-en-ciel—Louis Legrand, Eugene Delatre,
Charles Houdard, Lepere, and Richard Ranft—to
name a few among many—tried their hands at the
new work.
This little historical point established, it will be
well, before examining separately the works of the
artists engaged in colour etching, to throw some
light on the technical side of the process.
Two methods are adopted, equally interesting
and expressive, and capable, as we shall see later,
of being combined and amalgamated.
The first consists in the colouring {coloriage a la
poupce) of a single plate.
This is the system usually adopted by M. Richard
Ranft, and an excellent example of the effects
obtainable thereby is to be seen in his Le Salut de
I'Ecuyere.
Process No. 2, altogether different from No. 1,
includes the superposition of plates, each capable
of containing one, two, or even three colours,
provided the limits of each colour be clearly
defined. Le Polo (page 4), by M. Jeanniot, is done
in this fashion.
Unquestionably there is more harmony, more
body, more suppleness of colour in process
No. 1 than in No. 2, which, moreover, demands
on the part of the artist a profound knowledge of
engraver's work. Jeanniot's Le Polo and Sur la
Plage may be regarded as brush engraving; that is,
the outline is done with the brush instead of with
the graver's point, the modelling of the subject being
reserved for the later plates. In a word, process
No. 2 is, strictly speaking, pure etching, and thus
7 ■