A Blacksmith’s Shop
- Publisher
- John Boydell, English, 1719–1804
- Date
- 1771
- Material
- Mezzotint
- made in
- London, Greater London, England, Europe
- Classification
- Prints
- Collection
- Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
- Current Location
- Not on view
- Dimensions
- plate: 23 5/8 x 17 1/8 in. (60 x 43.5 cm)
sheet (trimmed): 24 5/16 x 17 5/16 in. (61.7 x 44 cm) - Credit Line
- The Sidney S. and Sadie Cohen Print Purchase Fund
- Rights
- Public Domain
- Object Number
- 15:2007
NOTES
Richard Earlom's dramatic large-scale print depicts a group of men forging iron on an anvil in an abandoned church. This is a stunning example of the mezzotint technique, popular in England in the 18th and 19th centuries because it yielded rich and velvety blacks. This process required the entire plate to be roughened with a tool called a rocker. The printmaker then scraped and burnished the roughened surface of the plate to the desired degree of whiteness, thus working from dark to light.
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