Landscape

Description

Henry Richard Greville was not a professional printmaker, but rather one of many aristocrats who pursued lithography as a hobby. Lithography depends upon the antipathy of grease and water, so a lithographer draws on a smooth block of limestone in a greasy medium—crayon or a liquid wash called tusche. When printing ink is applied to the wet stone, it only sticks to the drawn lines. The first collection of lithographs, or polyautographs, Specimens of Polyautography, was published in London in 1801 with pen lithographs by several well-known English artists. After this early start, lithography failed to catch on in England, however, leaving French artists to explore the full range of possibilities of the medium.

Landscape

Earl of Warwick

1803

Accession Number

41780

Medium

Lithograph on ivory wove paper

Dimensions

Image: 30.3 × 21.9 cm (11 15/16 × 8 5/8 in.); Sheet: 39.1 × 27.6 cm (15 7/16 × 10 7/8 in.)

Classification

lithograph

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

John H. Wrenn Memorial Fund