Elisa
Christiana Hammond
Photomechanical reproduction of pen and ink drawing.
4½ x 3½ x inches
George Saintsbury, ed. Marmontel’s Moral Tales, p.279.
An illustration showing the nervous Elisa spooning with her ‘Sylph’. Elisa’s uncertainty is conveyed in her facial expression and the scratchy cross-hatching adds to the sense of immediacy. However, the published design is far short of the fineness of the original drawing: a diminution in quality that reflects the technical shortcomings of the process of photographic reproduction as it was applied in the 90s.
Click on image to enlarge it.
Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.