Embers Glow

French artist Theodore Roussel took up etching while living in London during the late 1880s, developing his own techniques and distinctive style. Here, Roussel used aquatint to show a nude woman dimly lit by a fire. To accurately represent the evocative lighting described in the work’s title, Roussel mixed pigments to produce his own inks and carefully applied them to the plate with stencils. He also developed a method of registration so that the mat and frame—both his own printed designs—aligned precisely with the image.