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Tag: Intaglio

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Loose Book Illustrations in the Fagel Map Portfolios

by Emily Monty

Dr Emily Monty was the Fagel Collection Visiting Research Fellow in autumn 2022. She was hosted by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute at Trinity College Dublin. You can view a conversation between Emily and Ann-Marie Hansen, Project Manager of Unlocking the Fagel Collection here.

The Fagel Collection holds important material history for the study of publishing and collecting in the Dutch Republic of the eighteenth-century. The map portfolios alone contain over 1600 sheets and represent an extraordinary collection of rare and unusually well-preserved materials. Such collections of loose print and manuscript images in their original portfolios rarely survive intact, making the Fagel examples all the more important from the perspective of material and cultural history.

During a three-month Visiting Research Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), I came across a series of illustrations for an eighteenth-century travel narrative of the Caribbean in Portfolio XXII. These precious fragments of a larger illustration project reveal material evidence about practices in book publishing and collecting in The Hague, and give insight into the other discoveries that are waiting to be made as scholars continue to study the portfolio prints and related books held in the Fagel collection. In the following blog post, I describe my research methods and conclusions in hopes of promoting future research on the contents of these portfolios.

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Intaglio Printmaking Illustrated

Catherine McDonagh from the cataloguing department has prepared this month’s display in the Berkeley foyer, which features illustrations originally produced using intaglio printing techniques.

In intaglio printing, incisions are etched or impressed into a steel or copper plate. Ink is then applied to the plate and sinks down into the incised areas. The surface of the plate is wiped so that the ink only remains in the incisions and a print is taken. There are a number of methods that can be used to make these incisions. This exhibition looks at etching, engraving, aquatint, mezzotint, and photogravure techniques.

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On display are 4 examples of illustrations, the originals of which were printed using different intaglio techniques. In the print “A horse frightened by a lion”  George Stubbs used a mixed method of engraving which lies somewhere between aquatint and mezzotint, giving a tonal quality to the work. Francisco Goya used a variety of intaglio printmaking techniques in his series of prints “The Disasters of the War“. Etching and engraving can be seen in the line work while aquatint is used for the tonal areas. Photogravure illustrations are utilised in the successful author/illustrator collaboration between Irish novelist Lord Dunsany and English artist Sidney Sime “Time and the Gods” which inspired later authors and artists in the fantasy genre. The skill of graphic artist M.C. Escher is evident in the very dark and very light tones side by side in “Eye“. He mastered the technically difficult tonal engraving process of mezzotint to achieve this exact tone.

Many thanks to Catherine for her work in preparing this exhibition!