Perseus and Andromeda

A 1762 advertisement in a Paris paper announced, “Monsieurs Charpentier and Floding, authors of a new manner of engraving which imitates wash perfectly, are releasing six prints in this taste.” Perseus and Andromeda was among the first aquatints they published. It reproduces a drawing by Carle Vanloo, First Painter to the King (Premier Peintre du Roi). To make his aquatints, Charpentier reportedly built a special machine that was largely funded by a Swedish drawing collector, Count Carl Gustav Tessin.