NOCTES AMBROSIANAE C 1908
Walter Richard Sickert (1860 – 1942)
Details
- Dimension
- 18 X 22 CM
- Media
- ETCHING AND AQUATINT
- Accession number
- P2788
Summary
The scene shows the gallery of the Middlesex Music Hall in Drury Lane, London, familiarly known as the Mogul Tavern or the Old Mo’. The title refers to nights spent in convivial entertainment and conversation at Ambrose’s Tavern in Edinburgh. These were recorded and published in the form of dialogues in Blackwood’s Magazine(1822-35). The work went through three states, this being a third state with two applications of aquatint.
Further reading:
Ruth Bromberg, Walter Sickert Prints, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2000
Glossary
-
Aquatint
An intaglio printmaking process and a method of achieving tone by etching a plate covered with resin dust. The acid corrodes the unprotected metal leaving only the surface protected by a speck of dust. When inked the plate will print a tone of black through to very pale grey depending on the length of time it was immersed in the acid. Its name derives from the finished print resembling a watercolour, and is a tonal rather than a linear work.
