Towards the latter part of the eighteenth century we already find several fine books with hand-coloured aquatint illustrations published in England, among these are W. Hodge’s Select Views in India, 1786; T. Hassell’s Picturesque Guide to Bath, 1793; Combes’ History of the River Thames, with aquatints by J. C. Stadler; E. Orme’s Twelve Views of Places in the Kingdom of Mysore, with aquatints by J. W. Edy; and H. Repton’s amusing Sketches of Landscape Gardening, with moveable plates to show how good his suggested improvements were, all published in 1794, and from this time for the next thirty years were numbers of books issued with coloured aquatints concerning domestic architecture.
Early in the nineteenth century there are still numbers of books with aquatint views in them: J. Webber’s Views in the South Seas, published in 1808, and Boydell’s Picturesque Scenery of Norway, with aquatints by J. W. Edy, in 1820, and several more.
Then Rowlandson, the caricaturist, aquatinted the illustrations for Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield in 1817, and the inimitable Tour of Dr. Syntax, by Combe, in 1820, thereby setting the fashion for caricature in aquatint, which had a considerable vogue.
In Pyne’s History of the Royal Residences, the out-door views are printed in coloured inks, blue for the skies and brown for the foregrounds. They have additional hand-colouring. It is an important book, and was published in 1819; the aquatints are engraved by T. Sutherland, W. F. Bennett, R. Reeve, and others.
Then came a series of fine books on Indian scenery, mostly engraved by T. Medland, Hassell and Ellis, and many books of English views, mostly engraved by D. Havell, T. Sutherland, T. H. Fielding, J. Baily, or T. Cartwright.
Of less importance, but now becoming more esteemed, are the numbers of graceful costume and fashion plates which were done in aquatint and coloured by hand from about 1790 to 1840. These books are already much sought after, and will probably be more and more so in time; the plates are generally anonymous.
William Daniell illustrated Ayrton’s Voyage Round Great Britain with beautiful coloured aquatints; it was published in 1825.
There are many cases in which several kinds of work appear on the same plate; there may be aquatint and etching, mezzotint with etching, engraving or aquatint, so it is very important to be able to judge from the aspect of a line or dot or a point by which method it has been produced.
The magnificent account of the Coronation of George IV., published in 1825, under the care of Sir George Nayler, Garter King of Arms, is illustrated with mixed engravings, stipple, etching, line, aquatint and mezzotint, by S. W. Reynolds and other engravers, chiefly after designs by F. and J. Stephanoff. The plates are coloured by hand, and several of the special copies have much extra artistic work added. It is said to be the most expensive book ever published, and it never repaid its cost, but received a grant in aid from the Government of the day. The majority of the figures are careful portraits, and it is the highest authority for the State costume of the time.
Lithography is the art of drawing upon stone in such a way that prints can be made from the drawing. The drawing has to be done upon a particular sort of stone either directly or by means of transfer from lithographic paper, and it can be done either with a point of solid lithographic ink resembling black chalk, or by a liquid ink, in which case the drawing is called a lithotint. J. M. Whistler was remarkably successful in this latter manner, but it had been used long before by Hullmandel and Cattermole.