"The Huntsman's Dream"

by E Cananes

Print from an Engraving

Paper Size: 26 x 32 ins / 66 x 80 cm

Image Size: 21 x 27 ins / 53 x 69 cm

Published by John O'Malley & Son, Gerrard Street, date unspecified. An inscription in the margin reads: "The fox-hunting squire's after-dinner nap conjures up strange dreams and the longest-winded fox of the season seems to challenge him at his own fireside". This is a print from the only steel plate in the collection. Until the early 19th century copper was the material almost exclusively used for making intaglio plates. However, with burgeoning demand, it was necessary to develop plates that would withstand much longer printing runs. By the 1820s a method was found of softening steel so that it could more easily be engraved, and subsequently hardening it so that very many more prints could be made than from a copper plate. All the other plates in the collection are of copper, probably for three reasons: (1) they were made before steel plates were available; (2) even after steel came into use copper was often preferred when enormous printing runs were not envisaged, since it was much easier and quicker to work; and (3) in the second half of the 19th c. it was discovered that copper plates could be protected by steel-facing, at no detriment to the detail.

watermarks do not appear on prints