The Public Scribe
- Medium
- Etching, drypoint, and roulette on ivory wove paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 25.8 × 38.4 cm (10 3/16 × 15 1/8 in.); Plate: 29.3 × 42.1 cm (11 9/16 × 16 5/8 in.); Sheet: 30 × 42.7 cm (11 13/16 × 16 13/16 in.)
- Genre
- etching
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
engraving (printing process)printingprintprints and drawingetchingpaper (fiber product)drypoint (printing process)
About
This large plate is characteristic of de Boissieu' s last period of printmaking, which was dominated by his interest in landscapes and scenes of daily life. The influence of seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes is clear in this work, which depicts the predicament of a writer who must transcribe the message of a young couple although more interesting activities distract his attention. Boissieu used the roulette, a tool with a spiked wheel, to indent the plate and simulate the effects of an inked wash.
