Editing Aquatint (section)

===Early history===

A variety of early experiments aimed to add tonal effects to etching included the first use of a resin dust ground by the painter and printmaker Jan van de Velde IV in [[Amsterdam]], around 1650.  However, none of these developed a technique that caught on with other printmakers.<ref>Griffiths, 92; Hind, AM (1963) A History of Engraving and Etching. Dover Publications, New York.</ref> Experimentation by several artists with somewhat different techniques reached a peak after about 1750, and as they were initially very secretive, the history of the emergence of the standard technique remains unclear.<ref>Griffiths, 93–94</ref>

Various claimants include the Swede [[Per Floding]] working with the Frenchman [[François-Philippe Charpentier]] in 1761, J. B. Delafosse in 1766, working with the amateur [[Jean-Claude Richard]] (often rather misleadingly known as the Abbé de Saint-Non) in 1766, and [[Jean-Baptiste Le Prince]] in 1768–69.  Le Prince was more effective than the others in publicizing his technique, publishing ''Découverte du procédé de graver au lavis'' in 1780, though he failed to sell his secret in his lifetime.  It was bought posthumously by the [[Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture]] in 1782, who released it on an open basis.<ref>Griffiths, 94; Ives (MMA)</ref>
[[File:Joseph Lycett - The residence of Edward Riley Esquire, Wooloomooloo, Near Sydney N. S. W. - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Joseph Lycett]], ''The residence of Edward Riley Esquire, Wooloomooloo, Near Sydney N. S. W.'', 1825, hand-coloured aquatint and etching printed in dark blue ink.  Australian print in the tradition of British decorative production.  The artist had been [[Penal transportation|transported]] for forging bank notes.|left]]
Though England was to become one of the countries using the technique most, the earliest English aquatints were not exhibited until 1772, by the cartographer [[Peter Perez Burdett]].  It was taken up by the watercolourist [[Paul Sandby]], who also seems to have introduced technical refinements as well as inventing the name "aquatint".<ref>Griffiths, 94; Ives; Ann V. Gunn, "Sandby, Greville and Burdett, and the 'Secret' of Aquatint," ''Print Quarterly,'' XXIX, no. 2, 2012, pp. 178–180.</ref> In England artists such as Sandby and Thomas Gainsborough were attracted by the suitability of etched outlines with aquatint for reproducing the popular English landscape watercolours, which at this period usually also had been given an initial outline drawing in ink.  Publishers of prints and illustrations for expensive books, both important British markets at the time, also adopted the technique.  In all these areas, a print with etching and aquatint gave very satisfactory results when watercolour was added by relatively low-skilled painters copying a model, with a flat wash of colour on top of the varied tones of the aquatint.<ref>Griffiths, 94</ref> After the [[French Revolution]], one of the most successful publishers in London, the German [[Rudolf Ackermann]], had numbers of French refugees working on the floor above his shop in [[Strand, London|The Strand]] in London, each brushing a single colour and then passing the sheet down a long table.<ref>Mayor, 374–376</ref>

Over the same period in France there was sustained interest in techniques for true [[colour printing]] using multiple plates, which used multiple [[printmaking]] techniques which often included aquatint (or [[mezzotint]]) for tone.  Artists included [[Jean-François Janinet]] and [[Philibert-Louis Debucourt]], whose ''La Promenade Publique'' is often thought the masterpiece of the style.<ref>Griffiths, 119</ref> Another branch of this French movement mostly used mezzotint for tone and came to specialize in illustrating medical textbooks.  This was at first led by [[Jacob Christoph Le Blon]] (1667–1741), who very nearly anticipated modern [[CMYK color model|CMYK]] colour separation and then carried on by his pupil [[Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty]] and later members of the d'Agoty family until around 1800.<ref>Griffiths, 118–119</ref>

[[Francisco Goya|Goya]], maker of incontestably the greatest prints using aquatint, probably learned of the technique through Giovanni David from [[Genoa]], the first significant Italian to use it.  Goya used it, normally with etching and often burnishing and other techniques, in his great print series ''[[Los Caprichos]]'' (1799), ''[[Los Desastres de la Guerra]]'' (1810–1819), ''[[La Tauromaquia]]'' (1816) and ''[[Los disparates]]'' (c. 1816–1823).<ref>Ives (MMA); Griffiths, 94</ref>