![]() The vignette frontispiece is also an excellent piece of work by Mr. Cuff possessed in a peculiar degree, not to be imitated in any other manner. The effect thus obtained is a kind of mixture of mezzotint-etching-and lithograph and, except by such skill as Mr. The pressure of the point removes the wax which sticks to the tissue-paper, and leaves the surface of the plate in that degree open to the acid. When I use the needle-point directly on the steel, I never allow any burr or mystery of texture -(see the plates by my own hand in “Modern Painters“ -) but, in these architectural notes of shadow, I wanted mere spaces of gloom got easily and so used a process shown me, (I think, by a German engraver-my memory fails me about it now-) in which, the ground being laid very soft, a piece of tissue-paper is spread over it, on which one draws with a hard pencil-seeing, when the paper is lifted, approximately what one has got of shadow. For the original method of etching was not easily imitated by straightforward engraving. Cuff, and here reprinted, are quite as good for all practical illustration, and much more admirable as pieces of careful and singular engraver’s skill. The copies of them, made for the second edition by Mr. ![]()
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