Description: Samuel Arlent Edwards (1862-1938) was born in Somerset, England and studied art and architecture at Kensington Museum Art School from 1877 to 1881. He achieved early success in making mezzotint reproductions of well-known paintings, a path he was to follow all his life. In 1890 he came to the United States and established himself in New York as a book illustrator and began to work on color printing from a single mezzotint plate. He abhorred the traditional practice of touching up imperfect prints by hand, and he routinely penciled in the statement just above his signature: "Engraved and printed in color at one printing without retouching." Edwards himself inked and printed each plate for every copy, and therefore no two prints were exactly alike. He made only a limited number of copies of each work and he then destroyed each plate."
This color mezzotint of Lafayette is signed in pencil by Edwards with a handwritten line above the signature that reads "Engraved and printed [following words not legible]." Overall 12 3/4" x 9 1/2"; image size is 6 3/4" x 4 3/4". No date.
Condition: Paper is toned; image is excellent with vibrant color. |
