Two Antique Henry Alken Fores`s Hunting Sketches Entitled "The Right and Wrong Sort" | Hand Colored Aquatint Plates, 1859 | A very nice set of British fox hunting engravings | Hand coloured / tinted | Matted and Framed under glass | Dimensions: Each measures approx. 24" W x 28" H. Hand Colored Aquatint Plates: The aquatint process was developed to give the appearance of a water-color and was used increasingly for over fifty years for large plates of grand views or small book-illustrations and for practically any subject, but it came to be used almost exclusively as the ideal medium for the best result in sporting prints. The sharp outlines and clear coloring gave them a briskness which sport required; horses seem to gallop and jump with greater verve in aquatint, while farm-horses munch more contentedly in mezzotint. Many engravers devoted themselves to the medium and, together with draughtsmen and colorists, enjoyed a steady livelihood with employment from such flourishing publishers as Rudolph Ackermann, Thomas McLean and Mesrrs. Fores. The method of soft-ground etching successfully simulated pencil-drawing and was used extensively for instructional drawing-books, but it was Henry Alken who used it constantly over many years in his albums with their countless cameos of sporting and comic incidents. Lithographs in hand-colored form, although cheaper to produce, did not replace aquatints in popular esteem. Later in the century, the invention of chromolithography brought a high standard to color r printing, but initially it was to costly a process for the publisher of sporting prints. (Snelgrove, p. viii).

28 x 24 x 1.5 in

8 lb