Aquatint Worlds: Travel, Print, and Empire, 1770-1820

An illuminating investigation of how aquatint travel books transformed the way Britons viewed the world and their place within it

In the late 18th century, British artists embraced the medium of aquatint for its ability to produce prints with rich and varied tones that became even more stunning with the addition of color. At the same time, the expanding purview of the British empire created a market for images of far-away places. Book publishers quickly seized on these two trends and began ...