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Bubbles

Printing Block
1887 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Six blocks – a key block and five colour – build up a complex image. Edmund Evans (1826–1905) was considered the finest colour printer in London. He had a workshop employing about 30 people but maintained strict control over the process, determining the tones and colours himself. By this later period, he had progressed to using six colour blocks: dark brown, a flesh tint for faces and hands, red, blue, yellow and grey. A registration frame ensured that each block printed in the same place on the page so that the constituent colours of the design matched up.
Kate Greenaway (1846–1901) made the design drawing (also in the V&A), which was reproduced onto each block using a photographic method developed by Thomas Bolton in the mid-1860s, which involved coloured filters to allow separation of the individual colours. These were then translated by engravers as lines, hatchings, or dots or dashes. Greenaway allowed no one other than Evans to engrave her illustrations.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleBubbles (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
wood-engraved block
Brief description
Wood-engraved printing block, one of 6 used with a frame for printing colour. Engraved and published by Edmund Evans Ltd. after a drawing by Kate Greenaway. Bubbles, 1887.
Physical description
One of 5 woodblocks, each for a different colour, used with a sixth key-block for printing the image Bubbles in colour.

Two girls play beside some steps leading up into a garden with grass, border flowers and apple tree. One of the girls sits on a wall holding a bowl while the other holds a device used to blow bubbles. They watch a bubble floating between them. The girls are wearing muslin dresses with sashes and bonnets.
Dimensions
  • Height: 39.8cm
  • Width: 28.6cm
Marks and inscriptions
PINK (Hand-written on bottom edge)
Gallery label
(August 2019)
Evans was the leading colour printer in London from the 1870s. He used a wood engraving method to achieve a wide colour palette by overlaying hatchings, parallel lines and blocks of colour. Evans used photography to transfer the original watercolour drawing to the blocks before engraving them. He worked out the colours and how they combined by eye. The green is a mixture of yellow, blue and grey.
Credit line
Given by Mr. E. Wilfred Evans
Object history
"Bubbles" was originally drawn as a colour illustration for the 1887 publication "Rhymes for the young folk" written by William Allingham and illustrated by Kate Greenaway, Helen Allingham, Harry Furniss and Caroline Patterson.
Production
Set of blocks and registration frame for printing in colour at E.1373-379-1936, and a set of progress proofs at E.1380-1390-1936.
Summary
Six blocks – a key block and five colour – build up a complex image. Edmund Evans (1826–1905) was considered the finest colour printer in London. He had a workshop employing about 30 people but maintained strict control over the process, determining the tones and colours himself. By this later period, he had progressed to using six colour blocks: dark brown, a flesh tint for faces and hands, red, blue, yellow and grey. A registration frame ensured that each block printed in the same place on the page so that the constituent colours of the design matched up.
Kate Greenaway (1846–1901) made the design drawing (also in the V&A), which was reproduced onto each block using a photographic method developed by Thomas Bolton in the mid-1860s, which involved coloured filters to allow separation of the individual colours. These were then translated by engravers as lines, hatchings, or dots or dashes. Greenaway allowed no one other than Evans to engrave her illustrations.
Associated objects
Bibliographic reference
Victoria and Albert Museum, Department of Engraving, Illustration and Design and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1936, London: Board of Education, 1937.
Collection
Accession number
E.1374-1936

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
Record URL
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