Cultivated Medlar (Mespilus germanica)

Description

The brown and blue-green inks were printed à la poupée. Instead of making a plate for each color, a single plate is selectively inked in different colors using stumps of rags, known as dolls (poupée in French), so that the complete design is printed at one time. Since this process is laborious, the plate was most often colored by hand with watercolor, like the right-hand impression. The printed color, however, creates a more beautiful effect, because all of the subtleties of the shading are evident. In comparison, the watercolor camouflages some of the finest detail.

Provenance

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Cultivated Medlar (Mespilus germanica)

Gerard van Spaendonck

c. 1800

Accession Number

1939.289

Medium

stipple and roulette

Dimensions

N/A

Classification

Print

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, for the Donald Gray Memorial Collection