The University of Kansas
Spencer Museum of Art
Print Room: Image Maps of Printmaking Techniques
Click on any area that you would like to see close up.
Chinoiserie Design
Color etching printed à la poupée from two plates , image size: 195mm x 139mm
Museum Purchase: The Lucy Shaw Schultz Fund, 1992.0157
View full record What to Look for: This etching was printed from two plates, each of them inked in several colors. A tool like a small dauber was used to apply several colors to each plate. In French this tool is called a doll ("poupée), hence the term "inking à la poupée." Inks tend to run together with this technique. If you look closely you will find lines that change from one color to another. This is a characteristic of prints inked "à la poupée." For example, if you click on the lower umbrella at the lower right you will see some of the ochre ink of the upper umbrella has bled into the green ink used on the lower umbrella. By contrast, the reddish beans hanging in the tree in this same detail are very crisp and distinct from the green foliage they overlap, indicating that the beans and the foliage were printed by different plates. Another good example can be found if you click on the hat of the man at the lower left which shifts from blue to a green.
