Studio: international art (49.1910)

Old Aquatints

another. Some certainly used a finer graining
than others, but it is in the feeling for variety and
subtlety of the tone surfaces that one must look
for the artistic interpretation of the original, while,
of course, in the etching generally employed for the
outlines the engraver could assert his artistry.

The colouring was for the most part a matter
of handwork often quite artistically done. Seldom
were more than two inks used in the printing, but
how charming an effect could be produced with
only two tints may be seen in one of William
Westall’s drawings of Indian scenery, View on the
Bore Ghaut, engraved by T. Fielding and
“ coloured by J. B. Hogarth,” an uncommon in-
scription to find. A rare example of printing in
three tints, with no hand-colouring whatever, is
North View of Rif on Minster, engraved by F.
Bimie, after W. H. Wood, and “printed in
colour ” by W. Scott. But hand-colouring was
the rule, the artists invariably supplying a water-
colour drawing for the colourists to copy. And be
it remembered that some of these prints were
tinted by famous painters in embryo. Turner and
Girtin did such work in their ’prentice days. And
who knows but the boy Turner’s hand may possibly
even have coloured W. Williams’ engraving Court-

ship and Matrvnony, aquatinted by Francis Jukes
and published by J. R. Smith (Turner’s master) in
1787?

Mr. Walker offers plenty of variety in his selec-
tion, and he gives us of the best. There is a fine
example of William Daniell’s An Indiaman in a
North- Wester of the Cafe of Good Hope, and
two of his charming and famous British coast
series. The Havells are amply and worthily repre-
sented, and no artists in aquatint are better worth
studying. Besides three splendid plates of naval
actions in 1812, after J. Whitcombe, there is the
delightful View from Richmond Hill, the Windsor
Castle, and the bridges of the Lower Thames
by R. Havell and Son, to whom we owe other
notable prints on the walls.

That capital engraver, J. C. Stadler, is variously
represented here; in collaboration with Hubert by
four fine naval plates — Admiral Saumarez’s
glorious victory at Algeciras in 1801,—while all
his own are the elaborate Westminster Abbey,
after J. Gendall, an interesting draughtsman, and
some effective views of Margate, with the cele-
brated hoys, after De Loutherbourg. Like the
Havells and Daniells, J. Bluck, another excellent
aquatinter, was often the draughtsman of his plates

“ SCENE IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE : RAINY EFFECT ”
128

AQUATINTED BY G. HARLEY