2-726-683 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Cultivated Medlar (Mespilus germanica), c. 1800. The brown and blue-green inks were printed à la poupée. Instead of making a plate for each colour, a single plate is selectively inked in different colours 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 coloured by hand with watercolour, like the right-hand impression. The printed colour, however, creates a more beautiful effect, because all of the subtleties of the shading are evident. In comparison, the watercolour camouflages some of the finest detail.