Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the Adjoining Countries

Title

Sir John Froissart's Chronicles of England, France, Spain, and the Adjoining Countries

Heading

The Depth of Aquatint

Description

This book shows the use of aquatint: a method of illustration which developed in France in the eighteenth century. The artist Paul Sandby made it fashionable in Great Britain in the 1770s, as a medium for topographical illustration. The technique reached its peak in works published by Rudolf Ackermann in the early nineteenth century.

Aquatint is an intaglio process like etching, but instead of applying a needle to make lines, it uses powdered rosin on a copper plate to create varied tones as in wash drawings. Watercolour is applied by hand after the aquatint has been printed.

Chronicles had been popular since the early Middle Ages, and William Caxton printed three titles in four editions: two editions of the Chronicles of England (1480 and 1482) and one each of Ranulphus Higden’s Polychronicon (1482) and its derivative Description of Britain (1480). Froissart’s chronicles first appeared in England in English translation in 1523.

Author

John Froissart; engraved by John Harris

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme and J. White

Date of Publication

1808

Century

19th

Illustrations

Aquatint

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