WREN'S CITY (Wuerth. 504) by Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) . Mezzotint, 1909, signed and inscribed imp. in pencil, edition of approximately 75. Fine rich impression and condition, trimmed in a Whistlerian manor, top and sides to plate mark. Beautiful example.
The skyline of London, dominated by St. Paul's Cathedral. Sir Christopher Wren was given the task of designing the new St. Paul's Cathedral, a replacement for the earlier structure destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Here is Joseph Pennell's own words on his struggle to create this, his first mezzotint:
"I did not rock, lay this ground myself. The method is simply to fasten the copper plate to a table and then with a mezzotint rocker attached to a long pole with a joint which permits the whole affair to rock, go over the entire plate many times in many directions till it is entirely roughened up and if inked will print perfectly black.
I then made in Russian charcoal a sketch of the subject on a thin sheet of paper and laying it face downward on the plate in the press passed it through and the drawing came off, was transferred to the copper and gave a guide to follow. I commenced on the glittery water with muscle, and a scraper, cutting down the dots and then drew the design with the scraper—it was good to look upon-rubbing ink on the plate to see what I was doing— and then I put it on the press and pulled it-thinking I had done something which should rival and surpass the mezzotinters of the past, and got the dirtiest, scratchiest mess I ever saw. So I appealed to Frank Short and he told me that …. all his own work was the result of slavish drudgery-and I found this out. Had it not been for this damnable war I would have found out how to work—I have maybe-but since the time of Prince Rupert mezzotint has become the means of expression of the methodic plodder. I know something can be done with it. This plate was my first attempt—and I am not ashamed of it—of trying to render, as well as I could Wren's realized dream, so I scraped and scraped and scraped my drawing, working with the scraper from dark to light, and I have done what I could." (excerpt from Etchers and Etching, by Joseph Pennell, 1919.)
